


Two Legs for a Tail

by therealraewest



Category: The Property of Hate
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Fairy Tale Elements, Gen, also buffalo wings but that's also not a main focus, attempted drowning of some parties, basically fun times for all parties, implied violence in later chapters so warning for that, loving yet dysfunctional father/daughter relationships, mermaid au, radio static but it's not a main focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-10 09:59:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 23,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12909576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therealraewest/pseuds/therealraewest
Summary: "The kids in town were asking if there were mermaids out by the rocks," Hero said eventually, once her father's mug had long been empty but was still cradled in his thin fingers."There's no such thing," her father answered evenly.To Hero, swimming has always come more naturally than walking. According to father, the local lighthouse keeper, their family is cursed and the ocean is only a source of danger. A chance encounter with a mermaid turns both of their worlds upside down, and sends each on their own quest where they must ask themselves what exactly they're willing to trade to get what they want.





	1. A Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my super self-indulgent tpoh mermaid au, buckle up and enjoy the ride! I'll probably be updating this m/w/f until I'm out of chapters, which if my calculations (*cough*simple math of dividing 12/3*cough*) are correct should be around 4 weeks of updates. Oh, and if you do like it, please feel free to drop a comment down below, they're always appreciated ;)

On the shore of a cruel and ruthless ocean stands a lighthouse and its reluctant keeper.

No, that's not quite right.

On a quiet and charming beach, a young girl lives in a small cottage.

But no, that's not the whole story either.

Once upon a time, on a rocky shore, lived a lighthouse keeper and his daughter.

Yes, that is where we'll begin.

For decades, the lighthouse had been the only thing keeping the ships coming to and from the village harbor away from a cove full of sharp and dangerous rocks. The jagged stones would spring from nowhere and dash ships to pieces, and the villagers spoke in whispers of sirens and kelpies and other things that lurked in the water, waiting to drag you away if you weren't careful. The lighthouse keeper spoke only of the dangers of a dark sea and foolish, sleep deprived captains. He kept his post well, like his father before him, but when he settled down to sleep he always was sure to lock the doors and draw the curtains, and never, never went down to the shoreline. The sea was cruel and uncaring, he said. It would drown you in an instant, he said. Besides, he said, his family was cursed, and so they must stay as far from the water as possible.

Once, someone from the village asked why it was he stayed to mind the lighthouse if he was cursed, why he didn’t pack a bag and hop a plane and live as far from the sea as possible. He never answered, just scowled and stormed away back to his cottage.

The lighthouse keeper made sure to tell his daughter of the dangers of the ocean. Each day, he told her, she was to go to the village and come straight home. When she was not by his side she was to stay in the cottage, away from the beach and from the marsh. He told her of the family's curse, and of the uncaring and cruel nature of undertows and the poison things that burrowed in the shallows waiting to strike.

As is the nature of girls in stories like this one, the lighthouse keeper's daughter did not listen to her father, and found herself by the ocean more often than not, in a cove that protected her from her father's sight up in the lantern room where he watched the shore.

Despite what he told her, she had never found the ocean anything but inviting. The water was playful with her, the sand was always soft beneath her feet, and to her swimming came more naturally than running. The treasures she'd find at the shore would stay hidden amongst some driftwood she'd pulled out of the reach of high tide, lest her father find them in the cottage and discover where she'd been. The ocean was her secret and her joy.

To keep her father from suspecting her, the girl did spend many days in the village, visiting shopkeepers and playing with the local children. The people in the village loved the girl like she was their own, and she loved everyone in the village in their own way.

Today, she was out behind the hobby shop, feeding apples to the horse there with a couple of village children. The shopkeep had come out to supervise and give them more treats for the horse, since the day had been slow and she was close to closing for the night anyway.

"This used to be my brother, you know," said the shopkeep, brushing her messy hair from her eyes beneath her wide brimmed hat and jerking a thumb towards the horse. "Till he went and talked to the marsh witch."

The village children exchanged worried glances, but the lighthouse keeper's daughter only nodded, holding another apple out on a flat palm.

"There's no such thing as the marsh witch," said one of the village boys. "Grown ups just say there is to scare us."

"There is so," said a girl. "My mommy said I used to have a brother before the marsh witch gobbled him up."

"If he got gobbled up how'd your mom know the witch did it?"

"Now, now," said the shopkeep.

"What do you think, Hero?"

The lighthouse keeper's daughter stroked the horse's forehead, not turning to her name. "Hm?"

"Do you believe there's a witch in the marsh?" asked the child. "You live near the marsh, don't you?"

"I've never met her," said Hero. "But my papa says not to go in the marsh, so I don't know."

The children murmured amongst themselves, and Hero braced for the stream of questions she knew were coming. The village kids own parents kept them from the ocean as well, and since Hero lived the closest, she was always a target for the other children's curiosity.

"Is it true there are mermaids by the rocks?"

"I've never seen any," she answered.

"Are there kelpies by the shore?"

"Not that I know of."

"Is your family really cursed?"

"My papa says we are."

"Are you cursed?"

This was always when the shopkeeper or any other adult would break up the questioning. She could see it in the way the shopkeeper was lifting a hand to the brim of their hat, and she rushed her answer out just before the adult could speak.

"I don't feel cursed."

"That's enough, all of you. You should be getting home right about now." The shopkeep pulled her hat off and used it to swat away the village children, who ran off back towards the road and to their homes. "And you," said the shopkeep, turning a wry eye to Hero. "I'm sure your father will be wanting you home."

"I know," she said. "He always gets nervous on nights the fog rolls in."

The shopkeep scowled, then looked towards the horizon, towards the ocean. "There's fog tonight? How can you tell?"

"I just can," said Hero, running a hand through the horse's mane between its ears. It let out a huff and nuzzled into the girl's sweater, looking for more treats. "Tell your brother he's a very good horse."

"You can tell him yourself, you know."

She took the horse's head in her hands and whispered in a tone of utmost seriousness: "You're a very good horse."

The horse huffed again, and the girl gave the shopkeep one last wave before running off in the direction of home.

The path to the cottage took her along the top of a slope that fell off down into the fabled marsh. Her father always told her not to dawdle, but sometimes, like tonight, she found her eyes drawn to the waving weeds, and would often stop and stare at a patch of them, trying to discern if it was just her eyes playing tricks or if there was something moving out in the distance. Every so often a flock of crows would let out a warning cry and take to the sky, and Hero would stop and stare at their source, trying to find whatever had spooked them.

But the fog was already beginning to roll in off the water, and the sun was starting to set off the coast, so she picked up her pace until she could see the familiar roof of her home.

Some might say the cottage was small, but to Hero it was cozy. It always felt like it was meant for a different family than the one who lived there now, but according to her father it had belonged to his parents before him. He lived in his parents old room, and she in his old room, choosing the bed closest to the window and leaving the other untouched, as it had been for as long as she could remember. The main room was warmed by a wood stove, and had a lumpy but comfortable couch that the two would often cuddle up on during stormy nights or lazy evenings.

In the corner was an old carpet bag, nearly worn through with age and slightly stiff with the salt air, now used to hold knick-knacks and miscellaneous bits and bobs. Hero went over and knelt in front of it, running her fingers over the embroidered initials _R.G.B_. She reached inside, pulling out a metal tea infuser. Before long she had a kettle boiling and a mug prepared, and she pulled on her wellies as the tea steeped. She pulled a second, larger jacket on over her own and removed the infuser from the tea, judging the color to be sure it wasn't over or under-steeped. Satisfied, the girl hugged the mug to her chest and started the walk from the cottage to the lighthouse.

When she walked with her father, they always took the path up away from the shoreline, past the beach grass where the rocks were coarser, not exposed enough to the waves to become sand. When she was alone, however, Hero walked along the beach, leaving bootprints that were washed away by the lapping waves as she went. 

It was only about ten minutes to the lighthouse from the cottage, but by the time she'd arrived the sun had set and the fog had rolled full in over the harbor. If not for the rotating light at the top of the tower and her own knowledge of the beach and its topography, Hero could easily see how one could get lost in the mist.

She banged her heels on the stone steps leading up to the door, dislodging the sand from the tracks in her boots. The metal stairs inside were creaky and narrow but she scaled them easily, circling around and around until eventually she poked her head over the floor of the lantern room.

Her father was there, right where she expected him, in his chair in front of the slowly rotating lantern. Every few seconds the back of his head would be lit in a flash of gold, then left in darkness until the light came around again. He didn't turn when Hero climbed up into the room with him, or when she pulled up a chair beside his own. He only tore his eyes from the indistinct horizon when Hero carefully arranged the mug of tea in his hands and took her place beside him.

Slowly, like a man coming back to life, he sipped at the tea and his eyes went from distant to bright. He looked over at the child beside him with a smile.

"Rooibos?"

"Your favorite," she answered.

"Hm," he hummed in approval, taking another sip. "Is that my coat you're wearing?"

"Oh, yeah," she said, shrugging it off quickly. "I thought you might get cold."

"How did I ever manage without you?" he asked, balancing his mug between his knees and pulling the coat on over his button up shirt and suspenders. "How was your day?"

"Good," she said. "I fed the horse by the hobby shop."

He nodded. "The one the shopkeep says was her brother?"

"Mhm."

"He makes a very good horse."

They sat in silence a while, watching the fog curl outside the windows. Every so often the lighthouse keeper's eyes would trace along the horizon, following the internal lights of a ship going to the harbor. His shoulders would tense each time, and often Hero would note that he seemed to be holding his breath until the ship reached a certain spot on the horizon, and then her father's entire form would relax, satisfied that the ship was out of harm's way.

"The kids in town were asking if there were mermaids out by the rocks," Hero said eventually, once her father's mug had long been empty but was still cradled in his thin fingers.

"There's no such thing," her father answered evenly.

"I know," said Hero. "The kids just asked, is all."

"Hm," he said.

They lapsed into an unsteady silence, punctuated by the mechanisms that kept the lantern turning.

"Hero," her father said eventually.

"Yes?"

"The ocean is very dangerous."

Hero's stomach churned, despite the regularity of the warning. A trip to the beach just that morning stuck in her head, and she wondered if there had been any evidence for her father to have discovered her excursion by.

"I know," she answered.

"You must not go near it, do you understand?"

"I know, papa."

"There are things about the water that you do not understand. Our family is not safe in the water."

"I know, papa."

"Good girl."

He always did this spiel often, but more so on foggy nights. Something in his demeanor changed on nights like these, like he was only half there with her in the room. She would sit and watch him, like watching a painting, until light sparked back in his eyes and stayed, which often wouldn't be until the next morning.

Inevitably, at some point deep into the wee hours when Hero had a hard time keeping her eyes open, he would say "You should be at home in bed."

"So should you," she would always respond.

There would always be a pause, and then he would say "It's too dark for you to walk home alone," which was his way of saying "please stay with me."

She would always answer back "I don't mind staying here," which was her way of saying "of course I will." 


	2. An Encounter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hero meets a mysterious stranger. She and her father have a heated discussion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow y'all, I'm so glad you've been enjoying it so far! Your comments have been so encouraging, so thank you all for your support =)

       

            The next morning, the lighthouse keeper shook his daughter awake, and together the two of them took the path across the rocks back to their cottage. The girl, still bleary eyed, worked as a crutch and guide to her exhausted father, who collapsed into bed still in his clothes as soon as they arrived home. Hero wrestled his shoes off and threw a blanket on top of him, and he mumbled a sleepy ‘thank you’ as she pulled the curtains shut to block out the morning light.

            "G'night, Papa, I love you," she whispered through the crack in the door before easing it closed, and she heard a mumbled reply as she tiptoed back towards the kitchen.

            The girl spread a piece of toast with jam, sticking it in her mouth as she quietly slipped her boots back on. After nights like the one before, her father was knocked out for at least a few hours, meaning she could explore the beach all she wanted as long as she was back before he woke.

            Before long she was running down the path to the ocean, leaving toast crumbs in her wake and smearing jam across her chin. She soon hit the beach grass, then open sand, and soon enough she'd pulled off her boots and shorts and sweater and was wading her way into the water.

            She always kept her swimsuit on beneath her clothes, never knowing when a good beach opportunity would present itself. Hero lived for the precious moments when she could come swim, or dive, or just allow the saline water to keep her easily afloat. She’d taught herself how to swim years ago, and could almost keep up with the colorful schools of fish that she would find in the bay.

            The jagged rocks that her father's lighthouse kept ships safe from reached all the way into the shore, poking from the water like teeth and making a sort of maze within the water. Hero paddled between the stones, recognizing them easily and making her way to one of her favorite spots to practice diving. She was getting better at it lately, and with practice was able to hold her breath for longer and longer spans of time. The shells at the base of the rocks were always the prettiest, anyway, and she prided herself on finding many a treasure from her skills at diving.

            Beyond pretty trinkets, the creatures that made the shoal their home were always a fascination to Hero. Crabs and snails crawled along the sea floor, while colorful fish darted to and fro among the seaweed that grew there. She'd even seen a seal once or twice, and there was an eel that lived beneath her favorite diving rock that always had a funny smiling face, and would poke out to say hello when she visited.

            She scrambled up her rock, leaving wet pools in her wake across its surface as she lined herself up. The girl held her hands above her head, took a deep breath in, and leapt, arcing in the air and entering the water perfectly, going down, down, until she lost momentum and began to kick, righting herself and opening her eyes to take in the underwater world.

            What she had been expecting was her usual view - seaweed forest, schools of fish, crabs filter feeding along the rocks and shells at the sea floor, maybe even her silly eel smiling at her from a crack in the rock.

            What she had not been expecting was the addition of a mermaid, who was now staring at her in stunned surprise.

            No, not a mermaid. Merman.

            He was lanky, with a long thin copper scaled tail that complemented his torso. Some sort of golden medallion hung around his neck, resting on his otherwise bare chest. He held a bag in one hand that seemed to be made out of a woven green plant material, and in the other was a rusted metal fork that he appeared to have been in the process of adding to the bag. Red hair floated freely about his somewhat boney face, held back by the fins that protruded where a human's ears would be and a pair of glasses perched on his slightly hooked nose.

            Mermaids wear glasses, Hero thought, which was the only thought she could rationally accept in this particular moment.

            The mermaid blinked once, then twice. He let out a funny, awkward sort of cough, then reached up to scratch the back of his neck.

            "Uh," he said, his voice traveling surprisingly well through the water. "Hey there, kiddo."

            Hero hesitated, then waved tentatively. She tried to say "hello" back, but as soon as she opened her mouth a pocket of air bubbles rushed upwards.

            His eyes followed the bubbles, then went back to her. "Won't you be needin' to breathe soon?"

            As soon as he said it, Hero recognized the burning in her lungs. She kicked upward, breaking the surface with a gasp. She gulped down one, two, three mouthfuls of air and went back under, eyes going to where the merman had been just seconds before. She was just quick enough to see the flash of copper scales disappear around another of the rocks.

            "Wait!" she tried to yell, just losing more of her air. She swam as fast as she could toward the second rock, and it was the first time she'd ever felt slow in the water. By the time she reached the area she'd seen him vanish, he was long gone, leaving no trace behind him.

            Hero spent hours searching for him. She climbed atop every rock she could, calling across the water in hopes he'd hear. She dived into every nook and cranny she could find, searched each patch of seaweed in hopes of finding his hiding space. By the time she realized her search was fruitless, the sun was starting to get low in the sky and she was almost too tired from her constant swimming to make it back to the spot where she'd left her clothes.

            The girl trudged back up the path, too defeated to bother trying to make herself look like she hadn't spent the day in the ocean. Her dark skin was pink and peeling from the sun, and there was no way to dry off before her father saw her, and he was sure to see her. Even after bad nights, he rarely slept the entire day away. He'd have been up for hours already, waiting for her to come home.

            Sure enough, the lights in the main room were on and the chimney was smoking as she approached the house. She dropped her boots on the outside stoop and pushed the door open.

            He was sitting on the couch in the main room, and his eyes lifted to her where she stood dripping in the doorway. He paled instantly, mouth falling open as for a single second he was frozen in shock. Then the ice shattered and he was on his feet and shouting.

            "WHERE WERE YOU-  WHAT WERE YOU THINKING-? I'VE BEEN WORRIED SICK I HOPE YOU KNOW- AFTER EVERYTHING I'VE TOLD YOU AND YOU **STILL** WENT AND DISOBEYED ME-"

            She blinked up at him. "I saw a mermaid."

            His face, which had gone tomato red from his shouting, instantly drained of color once more. "You what?"

            "I saw a mermaid," she repeated, slowly and evenly. "By the beach. Mermaids are real."

            Without warning, her father grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her inside, slamming the door behind her. She barely had time to yelp from the sudden manhandling before he was double locking the door and moving to close the curtains.

            "I told you to stay away from the ocean. Didn't I tell you to stay far away from the ocean?" he moved frantically, methodically, as if he'd done this a million times, which Hero knew he had from nights when he got particularly bad.

            "Dad, did you hear me? There was a mer-"

            BANG.

He'd slammed a hand against the wall, and suddenly Hero's heart was in her throat. His eyes snapped to her and they held something wild, something terrifying in them that Hero did not recognize.

            "You are not to go near him! Do you understand me?"

            Hero tried to swallow the fear that was choking her. "Him?"

            "Them. It. The ocean. You are not to go anywhere near the water, ever again, do you understand me?" he accentuated the last four words.

            "You said mermaids didn't exist."

            "I say a lot of things to keep you safe."

            Fear was replaced with anger in her gut. "You knew and you lied to me."

            His voice had shards of ice when he spoke. "There are a lot of things you do not understand."

            It was suddenly her turn to be yelling. "I'm not just some dumb kid!"

            "You are a child and you're my responsibility, don't you understand that?"

            "You should have told me!"

            "So what, you could have ran off to go look for them?" he waved an arm in the vague direction of the ocean. "Those things are dangerous!"

            "He wasn't gonna hurt me!"

            Her father's face shifted suddenly into a mask, and Hero had the sense that her dad was somewhere very far away. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

            "I know what I saw, and I know he wasn't bad! He-"

            "THAT IS ENOUGH," her father's voice cracked like thunder. There was a reverberating silence for a couple of seconds, and then her father seemed to pull himself up straighter, his voice calmer and more composed when he spoke again. "That's it, from now on you only leave this house when I am with you, is that clear?"

            “What?!” Hero cried, a cold hand gripping the inside of her gut as she physically felt her freedom draining away.

            “It’s obvious I can’t trust you to listen to me, or to make good decisions when left to your own devices,” he said, voice cold, the way it got whenever he’d made his mind up about something.

            “That’s not fair! You’re not even listening-”

            “I’ve heard quite enough already,” he shook his head, waving an arm as if dispelling something in the air around his head.

            “But-”

            “I said that’s enough!” he snapped. “Now go to your room and think about how foolish you’ve been!”

            She wanted to say more, to convince him. She wanted to explain that he was wrong, that he wasn’t there, that he didn’t _know._

            Instead, she stomped her foot, making a much less impressive noise than she’d been hoping for, and shouted “I HATE YOU.”

            He opened his mouth to respond, but she was already storming off to her room, and if he said anything after it was lost to the sound of her door slamming behind her.


	3. A Deal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hero goes looking for the Marsh Witch. A deal is struck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My lovely formatting went away, thanks to the magic of google docs. Idk what the difference between this chapter and the previous two was, but this is how things are going to be now, apparently. Sorry, folks.
> 
> But anyway- One week done! Hope everyone's enjoying themselves, and i'll see you Monday with the next chapter =)

It was several hours before there was a knock on her door.

“Hero?” her father called from the other side.

“Go away,” she called back.

He cleared his throat. “I’m going to the lighthouse. We’ll discuss your… situation in the morning.”

There was a pause, him waiting for a response. After a few seconds there was a click and his footsteps retreated, and she heard the telltale sounds of him getting ready to leave for the night.

Hero pushed herself off her bed, tiptoeing to the door. She tried the knob only to confirm her suspicions- locked. With one swift motion she pulled a foot back and kicked the bottom of the door as hard as she could, making a resounding  **BANG** .

All noise of her father in the other room stopped dead for one, two... five seconds. Then there was a heavy sigh and he resumed.

Hero huffed, hopping back to her bed on her one good foot so that she could nurse her toes. Maybe kicking the door wasn’t the smartest move, but she was never known to make good decisions when she was angry. The throbbing, hot pain running up her leg only gave her fuel, and she waited, patiently, patiently, until she heard the front door open, close, and lock, until her father’s footsteps faded into the night.

He’d sent her to her room to think, and she’d certainly been thinking of something.

She’d been thinking of her mermaid. Of how everything her father had told her about curses and the ocean had been wrong, about his unwillingness to tell her the truth. About how she felt more at home in the water than on land, and now how any chance of seeing the ocean again was being held out of her reach when she was just now finally starting to understand.

She’d been thinking that if her father wouldn’t tell her the truth, she knew someone who could.

He’d locked her door from the outside, but he’d forgotten she had a perfectly good window. She’d never had to crawl out of it before, but it didn’t pose any sort of challenge, considering it was only a few feet up from the ground. She closed the window behind her as best she could, leaving a gap of a few inches. Her father might notice the draft, but she couldn’t do much better at the moment.

Her boots were still on the stoop, and she pulled them on easily. The night was dark, with only a sliver of moon for light, but she knew where she was going. Or, more, she didn’t quite know where she was going, but had a vague idea and a hope in her head.

She started up the path to the village until she hit the halfway point, where the path bisected with the steep slope down into the marsh. Hero stopped on the path a moment, standing on her tiptoes despite the way it made her hurt foot ache, trying to pick out an irregularity in the waving reeds. She’d never seen one before, not a concrete one at least, but maybe, this time, if she was actually looking...

There was something- no. Yes? She squinted. There, out in the distance. A glow? It was hard to tell, and seemed to flicker in and out of her sight. Still, it was enough to convince her, and she slid down the hill, heading in that direction.

Of all her father’s advice, she had always followed his requests to stay out of the marsh, and as she trekked she was grateful for her past obedience. Her boots sank deep in the mud, making her path slow and arduous. More than once the hungry mud pulled one of her boots off of her foot, and she’d have to balance like some sort of strange flamingo to try to pull it back out. The reeds were sharp and threatened to slice at her as she passed, but luckily her thick sweater protected her arms and torso, though her legs were not quite as lucky and already sported dozens of angry red scrapes. 

Frogs called and crickets chirped in the night all around her, falling silent as she passed only to pick back up once she was a safe distance away. Hero had once wanted to come frog-catching with a couple of other children, but had missed the opportunity. When the children who had gone returned muddy and scraped and crying of lost shoes and broken nets, another excursion was never planned. Hero could see why it had gone so badly, now, and wondered if she had been present if she would have been so eager to return to the marsh this night.

The further she tromped, the thicker the reeds seemed to get, until she was actively pushing through them like some sort of jungle. When had they grown so tall? She was sure they had been barely up to her waist when she’d first entered the marsh, but now they towered over her ominously. It was impossible to see more than a couple feet in any direction, and water filled in over her boot prints as soon as she lifted her feet, leaving no trace of where she’d already been.

As determined as she was, Hero was starting to feel like she was only going to succeed in getting horribly, hopelessly lost. 

Just as no small amount of blind panic was beginning to set in at the idea that she may very well get sucked into the mud forever, and perhaps her father was just looking out for her safety after all, there was a funny sort of rustling off to her side and she stopped her blind trek forward, listening with all her might.

She waited, trying to hear past the frogs and bugs and- there! Again, a sort of dry rustling of reeds. Her eyes turned to the side, to the source, looking for some sort of sign.

The reeds off to her left seemed to be bobbing steadily, up and down, like something breathing. Just as she was about to think this strange, the same bunch of reeds shook and lurched forward by about a foot, and there was the sound like someone humming. 

“Hello?” Hero called. “Miss Witch?”

The humming stopped, as did the rustling. Hero held her breath. The frogs and crickets sang.

“It’s past business hours,” came a voice that sounded both sharp and grandmotherly. “Come back tomorrow.”

Hero pushed through the thicket towards the source. One moment there was nothing but reeds and more reeds and then, in front of her, towering twice her height, was the largest hedgehog she’d ever seen. It peered down at her with squinted eyes through small, round glasses that caught the moonlight, and it scowled.

“Isn’t it a bit late for a child to be out here on their own?” The hedgehog peered down at Hero, and then, suddenly, something in her expression seemed to soften. “Oh. It’s you.”

Hero blinked up at her. “Me?”

“The lighthouse keeper’s girl, isn’t it?” She reached down and pinched one of Hero’s cheeks with her clawed hand. “Does he know you’re all the way out here?”

“No, Miss Witch,” she answered.

“Oh, please, it’s Miss Cell if you must call me anything.”

“No, Miss Cell,” she corrected herself. 

The witch hummed, a smile creeping in a jagged line across her face. “Alright then. Come on, let’s not keep you out in the cold, shall we?”

The witch turned and Hero had to take a hasty step back to avoid the pins protruding from her back. Where Cell walked the reeds cleared themselves in a bubble around her, and Hero stayed close, worried that she’d get caught in the reeds that closed with a  _ SNAP _ behind them as they went. 

A short walk later and they came upon a rough, circular-shaped clearing, in the middle of which stood what at first appeared to be a huge clump of marsh grass and reeds. Upon closer inspection, Hero recognized it for what it was - a cleverly disguised house, with warm light spilling out between the cracks in the grassy exterior.

“Don’t stand there gaping, come in,” said Cell, pulling open a door Hero hadn’t seen until the witch had approached it. The girl hurried in after the witch, only to let out a gasp at the interior. For what had appeared on the outside to be a hut barely big enough for its owner, the inside stretched out into a roomy, spacious area. Shelves lined the circular walls, with breaks only for windows that looked out upon different places Hero recognized: The village, the cove, her father’s lighthouse...

The witch moved to the center of the room, where a cauldron bubbled on a stand over a crackling fire.

“So,” said the witch. “What brings you to my marsh on this night, my dear? Has the sea finally called to you?”

“Yes,” said Hero. “I mean, no. I mean… I want to know about the mermaids.”

The witch scowled. “I’m not a library, you know, and I’m not keen on giving favors. Unless you have something to offer me in exchange you can go march right back to that father of yours.”

“But,” floundered Hero, “I don’t know who else to ask!”

“That isn’t my problem, now, is it?” Cell turned away from the girl. “In here you get nothing without payment.”

“Payment…” repeated Hero, looking down at her feet. She’d left with nothing but what she had on, her sweater, her shorts, her green wellies…

She scuffed one foot on the other, trying to rub some of the mud off of her boots. Once they were roughly clean, she carefully stepped out of them, picking them up in her arms. The witch’s hut floor was a bit prickly beneath her feet, but she could manage. She approached the witch. 

“What about these?” she asked, holding out her offering.

The witch turned, nose twitching slightly. She stared for a moment, at the girl, at the boots. With one clawed hand, she reached out and plucked them from the girl’s outstretched hands.

“You love these a lot, don’t you?” Cell asked, turning them over and examining them closely. “They kept you safe on your journey here, you know. If these boots had loved you less, you would still be stuck out there in the mud.” After another moment’s deliberation, the witch turned her head back to the child. “What do you want to know?”

“There are mermaids in the cove.”

“That’s not a question, and even if it were you already knew that one,” said Cell with a laugh. “You need to pick better questions than that.”

Hero was suddenly overflowing and found questions spilling from her lips faster than she could tell them apart. “Where do they live? How many are there? Are they friendly? Why have I never seen any before now? Why did that one have a bag, did he make it himself?”

The witch clicked her tongue, pointing with one claw towards one of her windows. “Why don’t you go see for yourself?”

Hero hurried over to the window frame, lifting herself to her tiptoes to peer through. Before her was an underwater landscape, towers of seaweed and coral combining together into some sort of underwater city. Mermaids, dozens of them, swam between the pillars in ones and twos, their scales catching the sun as it filtered through the azure water. She stared, trying to find the redhead she’d seen earlier. There! A flash of copper scales, towards the sea floor. She just managed to catch sight of him disappearing into an alcove. 

“Beautiful creatures, aren’t they?” asked Cell, placing Hero’s boots up on a high shelf. 

“Yeah,” marvelled Hero.

“You’re not the first to wish to join them.”

Hero nodded absently, then paused, her brow furrowing. “How did you-?”

“I’m a witch, dear, it’s my job to know what people want.” The witch was suddenly behind her, a hand on her shoulder. “Do you know what you want, child?”

She didn’t know why she said it, exactly. It was something she hadn’t even considered until it passed her lips, but as soon as it did she couldn’t see herself ever having wanted anything else.

“I want to be a mermaid.”

The witch hummed, considering this. “A mermaid, hm?” The clawed hand on Hero’s shoulder let go, moving past her head to pull a blue bottle off of the shelf. “And what have you to give me in return?”

Hero turned, watching the witch move back toward her cauldron. As the girl watched, the witch tipped the bottle, adding a few drops to her brew. Colored smoke began to spill from the lip of the pot.

“Um,” Hero said, shifting from one foot to the other. “Well. I guess if you’re a mermaid you don’t need legs, right? Is two legs for a tail a fair trade?”

The witch paused. A second passed, and then the hut was full of a deep, hearty laughter from the woman. Hero’s gut churned, and she wondered for a moment if she’d said something wrong, but when the witch wiped an errant tear away with one claw, finally catching her breath enough to speak, her worries were dissolved. 

“Yes, two legs for a tail. I suppose that’s fair enough for me.” The witch peered down her nose at the child. “I’ll only ask this once- you’re sure this is what you want?”

Hero barely thought before answering “Yes.”

 

Far away, in a cave below the city where the merpeople dwell, a bronze-scaled merman swam through the hall of the royal prison. Most of the cells were empty, but one, at the very end, in a dark and unwelcome corner, was this creature’s destination. He rapped twice on the bars, leaning in to hook his arms through and lean forward, pressing his face to an opening.

“Hey dollface,” he called into the dark. “You’ll never guess what happened to me today.”

There was a sound of someone shifting, just out of view. It was a small acknowledgement, but by now the man had learned that it meant the other was listening intently.

Despite himself, a genuine smile cracked his face. “I think I just met my niece.”


	4. An Adventure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hero goes exploring. Many friends are made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the fluff chapter where geography is made up and language barriers don't matter. As always, comments are encouraged!

Swimming was always a joy for Hero. The weightlessness, the way her body cut gracefully through the water, the simple pleasure of floating and letting the world be washed away. 

Somehow, all of it had been nothing compared to what she could do now. 

Where before there had been resistance, now she felt only grace and speed and fluidity, like her body itself was becoming one with the saltwater that surrounded her. Swimming with a tail came as naturally to her as swimming with her legs had, but now she was faster, more agile, more free-

**_Ow._ **

She rubbed her head, pushing off from the rock column she’d just had the misfortune to bang head first into. Maybe being faster wasn’t something she was quite used to yet, she thought, looking around and trying to gain her bearings. 

It almost surprised her to find herself back in her favorite diving spot. She supposed she’d managed to swim there through some sort of muscle memory, though she hadn’t realized where she’d been going till she got here.

Her eyes brightened suddenly as a thought struck her, and she began peering around, examining the rocks around her. It took her a few moments to orient herself but- there! A small crevasse in the stones, nearly hidden away. Watching her speed to avoid another collision, she swam up, hesitated, and gave a small knock on the rock above the opening.

“Hello?” she called, her voice as clear through the water as the merman’s had been the day before.

There was a moment's pause, and then-

“He low?”

Hero’s eyes widened and she let out a small gasp. A second later, a familiar green head poked out from the rock, looking up at her with curious black eyes.

“I can talk to you?” asked Hero.

“Talk two yew!” mimicked the eel, coming further out of its hole and giving her a goofy grin.

Hero giggled. “You’re funny. What’s your name?”

“Yor name?”

“I’m Hero,” said Hero. “That’s my name.”

“He-row. Yorname!” squeaked the eel.

“Can you only use my words when you talk?”

“Mywords,” said the eel.

“Huh,” said Hero. “So, do you not have a name?”

“Nothava nayme,” it repeated.

“Do you want one?”

“Want won?”

“Hmm,” Hero pondered, looking at the grinning eel in front of her. It was mostly green, with a slightly darker hue on its nose and the tip of its tail, and along the ribbon-like dorsal fin that ran along its back. “I always kinda thought you looked like a sock puppet.”

“Assok,” said the eel. “Mi nayme!”

“Assok,” repeated Hero. “It’s nice!”

“Assok! Assok! Snice!” said the eel, twirling around her like a ribbon.

Hero laughed again. “Well, Assok, do you wanna come exploring with me? It’s my first day as a mermaid and I wanna see everything!”

“Go sploring! Seevery thing!” chirped Assok.

And so they did. The two of them spent hours weaving between stone pillars and seaweed gardens, picking up rocks and greeting the snails and bottom feeders beneath them, gathering pretty shells and exploring every nook and cranny of the cove that Hero thought she’d known so well. As it turned out, when the limitation of having to hold her breath wasn’t an issue anymore, she could easily discover things she would have never found otherwise.

They were in the depths of a seaweed forest, admiring the sun’s rays through the water when a sharp cry broke their peace.

“INTRUDERS! TRESPASSERS! HOW DARE YOU!”

Hero turned, looking for the source. She found it quickly- a pink jellyfish was floating somewhat ominously above the two of them, tentacles flared out in an attempt to look larger.

“HOW DARE YOU DISRUPT THE SANCTITY OF MY HOME?! YOU WILL RUE THE DAY YOU-”

“Hello,” said Hero.

The jellyfish paused. “... Hello.”

“You’re really pretty,” said Hero.

There was another pause. In a much gentler voice, she asked “... I am?”

“Mhm,” said Hero. “Is this your home?”

“It wasn’t always,” said the jellyfish. “But it is now.”

“It must be wonderful to live here. I didn’t mean to trespass,” said Hero. “It’s my first day, so I didn’t know.”

“... I suppose that’s alright,” said the Jellyfish. “If you didn’t know.”

“I’m Hero,” said the girl. “This is Assok. What’s your name?”

“I am Julienne,” said the jellyfish. “I haven’t seen a mermaid wear human clothes in the longest time.”

Hero used her thumbs to tug at the sleeves of her sweater. “It’s my first day being a mermaid. Do you know where the others live?”

“Very far from here, child,” said Julienne. “It would take nearly a day for you or I to swim there.”

“Oh,” said Hero, her hopes of finding the city and returning before her father knew she was gone beginning to fade.

“But I know someone who may be able to get you there faster,” supplied Julienne.

“Really?” asked Hero, perking up again. Julienne was already floating upwards, out of the seaweed forest and into clearer waters.

“Melody?” She called, voice somehow booming throughout the space. “MELODY!”

“Who’s Melody?” asked Hero, giving a couple flicks of her tail to propel herself up and out of the kelp forest. Before Julienne could answer, a response to her initial call rose in the form of a cry that seemed to shake the whole ocean.

Once the noise died down Julienne responded, her voice overflowing with fondness. “That’s my wife.”

Hero hardly needed to squint to see the enormous whale swimming toward them from past the drop off. There was another burst of whale song and Hero had to cover her ears while Julienne floated upwards to meet her spouse. 

“I missed you, too,” she responded. “How was your day?”

The two conversed in a mix of words Hero could understand and whale song that caused the water around them to vibrate. Hero was able to piece together most of it by the half of the conversation she caught, and she had a thought that the two seemed very much enamored with each other. 

Eventually, Julienne floated back down towards the two of them. “These are Hero and Assok. Hero, Assok, this is Melody.”

“Hi Melody,” said Hero, waving.

“Hime lodee,” said Assok.

Melody let out a low, friendly rumble. 

“Hero is wanting to go to see the other mermaids. Would you mind taking her?” asked Julienne.

Melody let out a slightly different rumble that sounded agreeable. 

Julienne hummed happily. “She says she can get you there before sunset. Is that alright?”

“That would be amazing!” said Hero. “Thank you so much!”

Melody rumbled something that Hero could only assume was some variation of “no problem.”

The girl turned to the eel beside her. “What about you, Assok? Do you want to come with or stay here?”

“Stae heer. Mi home,” said Assok.

Hero nodded, then reached out and gave the eel as good of a hug as she could manage. “I’ll be back soon, and we can hang out again, okay?”

“Bee bak soon!” echoed Assok.

Hero turned to Julienne. “Thank you again, and sorry for trespassing earlier.”

“It’s okay, child,” said Julienne. “Just be wary. Not everyone is as kind as me, you understand?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” said Hero. She swam up towards the whale, balling her hands in her sleeves. “Um,” she said, suddenly unsure around a creature so unfathomably bigger than herself.

The whale turned slowly, her eye twinkling with a kind gleam. Melody extended one pectoral fin and let out a low note, waiting for the girl. Hero swam up and, carefully, grabbed onto the front of the fin. Melody made an agreeable noise, and one last call to Julienne, who seemed almost to blush pinker at whatever had been said. And then Melody gave a kick of her tail and they were off.

Hero at first clung to the fin as if for dear life, but as they went she found that the pace was fast but not unpleasant as they cut through the water. It felt almost like flying, and sometimes Hero would let go with one hand to stretch her fingers, only to end up sticking it straight out to feel the water flow around her as they moved.

They swam for several hours, until the seaweed forest and rock pillars had long faded into the blue distance, until there was nothing but open water in any direction and Hero wondered how Melody possibly knew where they were going, because there were no landmarks to be seen. She didn’t question her, though, since she figured that Melody had been living here much longer than she had and must know her way through the depths. Every so often, Melody would rise to the surface and take a deep breath, spraying water high into the air from her blowhole, before diving back down and continuing in their trek.

As they went, Hero talked to Melody. She told her about her home, about her dad and the lighthouse and their cottage by the sea. She told her about the children in the village, and about the witch in the marsh, and about the mermaid she’d met in the cove. She told her it was her first day as a mermaid, and how she was slightly nervous about meeting the others, and wondered to herself aloud if they would be as kind as the other creatures she’d met so far. Melody interjected sometimes with her whale songs, which now that they were in the open ocean sounded beautiful and deep and mournful all at once. 

Finally, something dark and vast loomed on the horizon. It looked to Hero like a great wall of dark green, and as they approached she saw it shift and change in a way that made her eyes hurt. A wall of kelp, stretching from too deep down for Hero’s eyes to see to nearly up to the water’s surface, and stretching back into its own thick forest. Melody slowed to a stop a good ways away from it, letting out a long note that Hero interpreted as “we’ve arrived.”

Hero let go of the fin, flexing her fingers and swinging her arms to restore some circulation to them. She swam over in front of Melody’s eye, which looked up at her almost fondly.

“Thank you, Melody,” said Hero. 

Melody let out the same call as she had at the start of their journey, the “you’re welcome” cry.

“I hope I get to meet you again. Your songs are very pretty.”

A lilting call signaled the receipt of the complement and a return of the sentiment. After a moment the eye turned away, and Hero moved as Melody turned 180 degrees and, with a few flicks of her tail, was gone.

As soon as Melody was out of sight, Hero realized how truly small she felt. The border of the kelp field went on as far as she could see in either direction, and glowed greenish orange from the light of the setting sun filtering through the waves. Hero took a deep, watery breath, and began to swim towards the leafy, waving wall. 

The girl hesitated at the threshold, her heart skipping beats in her chest. Was the mermaid she’d seen really through this last obstacle? What if she were to get lost so close to her goal? She’d made it through the marsh alright, but this seemed something entirely different…

There was some sort of rusting ahead and to the left. Then another, just seconds after. It was accompanied by something else, and Hero strained her ears. There was a rhythmic sort of metallic noise, a sharp  _ click, click _ …

“Hello?” she called, her voice sounding immeasurably small.

“Well, well, well,” said a voice from within the wall of green. “What do we have here?”

Something silver and sharp poked out of the kelp, pointed at Hero. Beyond the point of the tip of the harpoon, six golden glimmers could be seen, arranged neatly in three rows, like three pairs of eyes leering in the dark. They approached slowly, details coming into view one at a time. Black lines joined the rows of gold in smiling crescents. Chains held the sides, glimmering gold. Then a golden arm band, a pale wrist, fanning fins and rows and rows of sharp teeth, grinning.

It was a mermaid, different than the one she’d seen before. This one was sharper, scarier, draped in opulence that reminded Hero of royal guards in storybooks. The chains that held the decorative buttons on his chest clinked together when he moved, and swayed even when he stopped, making the clicking she’d heard earlier. He had a whaling harpoon in his hands, pointed at her where she was frozen in place. 

He had a shark’s smile, but it faltered as he looked at her. His brow seemed to furrow, his eyes sparking with something- recognition?

In an instant the spear was down and his head was bowed, one arm crossing in front of his chest.

“Please, forgive me. I didn’t recognize you,” he said quickly. His voice had lost all malice in an instant, and he sounded… prim? Like the way some of her more timid classmates would speak to the teacher in the village when they were trying to be respectful.

“Um,” said Hero.

“It has been so long, we had begun to think you would never return to us,” the mermaid looked up, his shark’s smile back on his face, sending a small shiver down Hero’s spine. “Your Highness.”


	5. A Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> RGB goes searching for his daughter. A conversation is had with an old friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to sunscreen-and-chickens for the idea with the seashells which I managed to tuck into this chapter. Again, if you like what I do, feel free to drop a comment down below! They really help with upping motivation to make more.
> 
> edit: I FUCKED UP and described hero's boots as red in ch 3 which has since been redacted. Her boots are green. I am god of this world and I declare it. (thank u sun u saved me from my own fic innacuracies and the exestential crisis i just went through bc i couldn't remember the canon color of hero's boots)

It took him until dinner to realize she was gone, which in hindsight was entirely too long. He’d arrived home early in the morning after his night at the lighthouse, shouted something to let Hero know he was home, and promptly collapsed on the couch for several hours. The day after he woke was spent mostly pacing and reading, with occasional knocks on her door to ask if she was ready to come out and talk properly yet, or to ask if she might want a sandwich for lunch, or to tell her he thought her method of freezing him out was particularly immature. After the fifth time knocking to tell her she definitely needed to eat  _ something _ and he was making her favorite dinner and alright if it’s going to be that way then I’m coming in whether you like it or not, he opened her door to find her bed neatly made and the window half-open and his daughter gone.

The townsfolk were no help at all. He rarely had time these days to go down to the village himself, and since Hero had gotten old enough he usually relied on her to run errands for him since his schedule rarely fit with the day-night cycle of the average townsperson. Several of the townsfolk had no idea who he was, and he had to go through the annoying process of re-introducing himself and trying to keep away from the topic of where he’d been the past few years and eventually getting people to focus on the fact that he was here looking for his daughter.

No shopkeepers had seen her that day; not even the hobby shop owner, who claimed that Hero spent most of her time in the village by the owner’s stable. The children mostly laughed and ran away from him when he approached them, playing an impromptu round of keep-away with his hat instead of answering any of his questions. He was fetching his hat from a mud puddle when one of the children shouted, pointing off into the distance.

“There! I told you, I told you didn’t I?” said the child, pointing towards the marsh. “It’s the witch!”

The children gathered with the lighthouse keeper behind them, staring out to try to find what the first child was pointing at. 

“I don’t see anything,” said one.

“Me neither,” said another.

“There, don’t you see the smoke?” said the original child, pointing at a thin wisp of smoke on the horizon. “That’s from her chimney!”

“What’s a witch need a chimney for?”

“It’s steam from one of the boats, isn’t it?”

“You’re just trying to scare us!”

The lighthouse keeper flicked his hat, cleaning most of the mud from it before placing it back on his head. “Thank you, children,” he said begrudgingly. “You’ve been an enormous help.”

He marched his way back towards his cottage, the setting sun guiding his way and throwing long shadows behind him. He got to the hill where the ground sloped off into the marsh and stopped despite himself. The man took another step forward, scowled, and looked out into the marsh. With a grumble and a string of curses, he turned on his heel and marched down the hill and into the reeds.

It was dark when he arrived, and he was covered in mud up to his knees, shivering, and unendingly frustrated. He lifted a fist to knock, only to be cut off.

“We’re closed, come back during business hours,” called a prickly voice from inside.

He hesitated, surprised. “Where’s Madras?”

There was a huff from inside, and he heard the witch shuffling towards the door, muttering to herself about manners and the late hour and how one did not have conversations shouted from either side of a door. The door opened and Cell squinted up at him with her sharp scowl. “She retired. Or didn’t she tell you?”

“I appear to be somewhat behind the times,” said the lighthouse keeper. 

“Aren’t you always?” said the witch, turning around but leaving the door open. “R.G.B, I should have guessed you’d come to my doorstep sooner or later.”

The man stepped in, closing the door behind him. “I’m looking for my daughter, has she been here?”

“I don’t seem to recall you having a daughter. Who’s the girl’s mother?”

A scowl crossed the man’s lips as he plowed forward. “The girl’s about this tall, brown hair. She’d be about eight, now. Surely you remember-?” His eyes caught on something green, and he found himself staring at his daughter’s boots up on the highest shelf of the hut. 

Anger rushed through him, but the witch held up a hand as if sensing his shift. “She’s perfectly fine, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing she didn’t ask for. You certainly raised a clever one, didn’t you? Phrased it perfectly when she asked. Usually I get the types - ‘I want to live in the ocean,’ or ‘I want to swim with the mermaids,’ or ‘I want to run as fast as a horse.’” She paused, scratching her nose. “Well, that last one wasn’t ocean-related, but still. Humans have the oddest knack for asking for things they don’t actually want.”

“What exactly did you sell her, and for what?”

“All business today, aren’t you?” asked Cell. “But then again, you always are, good man.”

“Cell,” he said warningly.

“Two legs for a tail,” Cell said. “It seemed like a fair trade considering the circumstances. I even threw in some gills, the poor little thing forgot to ask for those. Next thing you know I’ll be turning this hut into a charity house.” She moved and sat into an enormous armchair that already looked like more of a pincushion with the amount of her quills that had stuck in it. “Besides, my predecessor made a similar deal with you on her behalf, years ago. It only seemed fair to issue the girl a refund.”

His face went hot and he wanted desperately to have something clever and sharp to retort, but nothing came. Instead the man’s shoulders slumped and he dragged himself to an open chair near hers, collapsing into it and putting his face in his hands. “I tried so hard to keep something like this from happening…”

“I’m sure you did,” said Cell, pulling a pair of knitting needles from a basket beside her chair and continuing her work on something that looked like a small blanket.

“She’s just too curious for her own good! Did you know, when she was just this small-” He held a hand up about knee height. “I tried to tell her that the ocean had used up all its shells so she wouldn’t go looking for any down by the beach. She came back the next day with a book from the library and started trying to teach me about how seashells are made, can you imagine?” He let out a small laugh. “She was always too smart for me.”

“I can’t fathom why she would come to the conclusion not to listen to you,” deadpanned Cell. 

The man gave a defeated sigh. “This is my fault.”

“You could say that, yes,” said Cell, not looking up from her knitting.

He glared at her. “It’s a good deal your fault as well. What are you thinking, offering deals to children?”

“I’m a businesswoman,” she said simply. “If there is a demand, I supply. If I turned down every wayward child who came to my door I’d be out of house and home in no time.”

“But why this child,” asked RGB desperately. “She’s already had her fair share of magic, not to mention just being around me makes the ocean unsafe for her.”

Cell wrinkled her nose. “Are you still going around telling people you’re cursed?”

“I  _ am  _ cursed. And anyway, you know how I’ve-”

She snorted. “How you’ve raised her? How you’ve kept her safe and dry and away from the ocean by any means necessary?” Cell chuckled. “Yes I’m well aware.”

“Can’t you sympathize with me at all on this?”

“Do you maybe think you might be projecting your own anxieties onto a girl who was never yours to begin with?”

The man bristled. “What was I meant to do? Let her die? Send her back to a cruel and ruthless ocean?”

“If a bird breaks its wing on your window, do you keep it forever?” asked Cell. “Or do you bandage it, feed it, make it better, and then let it go?”

“A bird is not a child.”

“A mermaid is not a human.”

The lighthouse keeper huffed, folding his arms across his chest.

Cell hummed. “What was that saying that people have? If you love something, never set it free?”

“It’s the opposite, actually.”

“Hm,” said Cell. “Well, according to that, I’d say there’s nothing to do but wait for her to return on her own, now, is there?”

“And will you return her to normal?” asked the lighthouse keeper. “Give my girl her legs back, if she asks for them?”

“Now, now,” said Cell. “The refund I gave her earlier was for a special price. If she were to want to turn back again, there would be an upcharge.”

“You’re unbelievable,” said RGB. He reached into his jacket, tucking a hand into his interior pocket. “What do you want for the boots?”

“Hm?” asked Cell.

“The boots, there-” he motioned with a jerking motion. “I figured you- well, Madras, initially- might be involved in all this, so I packed a few things. What do you want in return for them?”

RGB pulled his hand from his pocket, and a shoebox with it. Cell hummed, smug and curious all at once, setting her knitting aside.

“Where were you keeping that all this time? Deep pockets?”

“Old habits die hard, I suppose,” he grumbled, pulling the lid off the box. “I’ve got some trinkets for you, family heirlooms and the like. You do deal in nostalgia, do you not?”

He handed the box over and she began to comb through it. She took things gently in her claws, examining them, turning them over, putting them back to pick up another. A large, international plane ticket. An old sailor’s compass.  A death certificate.  A captain’s cap, sized for a child. After a minute or so, she passed the box back.

“This is all useless to me, you know that,” she said.

“I thought objects that carried strong emotions-”

“And most of that is too covered in bad ones to be of any use.” She waved a hand. “Don’t palm off your garbage on me, young man.”

He let out a frustrated huff. “Fine. What  _ do _ you want?”

She smiled, stroking a hand down her chin. “Your jacket. The one with the deep pockets.”

He bristled. “For a pair of child’s boots?”

“For  _ your _ child’s boots. And-” she said, reaching to the side to pluck a vial off the wall. “A potion of water breathing, as a bonus.”

His brow furrowed. “How long does the potion work?”

“As long as it need to,” she said, wiggling it in her hand. “Do we have a deal?”

He paused, looking from the vial, to her, to the boots on the shelf. Finally, with a heavy sigh he relented, shrugging the jacket off.

“Good man,” Cell chirped. 

“Spiteful witch,” he returned. “Now give me what’s mine and I’ll be returning to the land of sanity. And if-  _ when _ my daughter returns, we will discuss putting her back to normal.”

“Always a pleasure doing business with you,” said the witch with a grin, swapping the coat for the vial in her hand. 

RGB stood, striding over and plucking the green boots off the shelf. He spun on his heel, using the hand with the boots in it to point towards Cell as if he were going to try to fit in a last word, but he decided against it and just headed towards the door.


	6. A Conference

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hero arrives in the mermaid city. Dial tells a story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wooooo-oooooah we're halfway theeeeere~  
> But for real, y'all have been amazing and I hope you continue to enjoy this fic, and if you do, comments are always appreciated.

The city was even more amazing than what she’d seen in the witch’s window. The colors were brighter, somehow. Towering buildings made of living coral served as homes and businesses, and mermaids and other creatures flitted in and out of them like bees in a buzzing hive. Kelp surrounded the city like a shroud, and grew sparser in the more populous areas, making something akin to lawns in front of the buildings.

The man beside her had been quiet for most of the journey, save for the steady  _ click, click _ of his decorative chains. She’d been hoping their arrival in the city would spur him into speaking, but instead he soldiered on at his same steady pace. They weaved through columns, avoiding the other citizens who mostly seemed unbothered by their appearance, though Hero thought she noticed that some gave the two of them a wide berth. 

The further into the city they went, the more the central building stood out. It was as if a cluster of the pillars that made up the individual residences had fused together into one enormous reef. It appeared like a kind of palace, made of intersecting turrets and with dozens of entrances. 

The guard started towards a larger, main entrance, and Hero followed. The inside was opulent in a way Hero had never seen. The tunnels inside glowed with an odd sort of bioluminescence, and intricate coral patterns decorated the walls, floors, ceilings… Hero realized that in a city where nobody walked, there wasn’t a distinction needed between walls and floors. Instead, most passages seemed circular, with plenty of room to swim through, even side-by-side as she and the guard were doing.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when he finally spoke. “There’s an empty room down the corridor to the right. Rest up, the council will wish to hear from you in the morning.”

“Oh! Um,” she said, “the Council?”

“Our leaders. The queen herself is gone on a diplomatic mission across the Atlantic, but I know she’ll be anxious to see you upon her return. As for the rest, I know they’ll want to make the best decisions regarding your return.” He looked down at her and grinned, shark teeth and all. “It isn’t every day our lost heir is returned to us.”

Hero wanted to protest, but something kept her mouth closed and she simply nodded. 

The guard gave her another bow, like the one he’d done upon first meeting in the kelp forest. “Goodnight, Princess. I’ll come fetch you in the morning.”

“G’night,” she said, and waited for his  _ click, click  _ to fade as he swam away down another corridor until she turned towards where he’d said her room was. 

In lieu of a door, a sort of curtain of seaweed blocked the entrance of the chamber. Hero pushed through it to find a bedroom that was as large as the entire common room of her cottage. An enormous bed made of some sort of plush, organic material looked suddenly welcoming after the long day, and Hero sat on it as her eyes wandered the room. Various furniture was made of the same intricate coral as the walls, making it appear like the room itself had been grown as opposed to assembled. A few familiar human things decorated the space- a mirror, a serving tray, a set of curtains that billowed in an invisible current.

With a heavy sigh, Hero moved to the window and leaned her elbows on the sill. The city outside glowed with the same bioluminescence as her room and the hallways, which bathed the pillars in an odd, blueish-green light. The sun had long since set, and Hero’s mind went to her home, to her own bed, to her father.

Her father. She frowned. Was that really what he was to her? She’d never had cause for doubt until now, until some man she didn’t know called her by a title that wasn’t hers. Princess? Highness? Heir? Could any of those really be her?

What if her dad was the King, she thought suddenly.

The thought was cut off as she saw a familiar flash of wild red hair pass far below her window. She leaned way out and saw a mermaid,  _ her _ mermaid, the one from the cove, disappear into an entrance towards the base of the building. 

Hero was about to rush out of her room to try to navigate out the winding passages to follow him when she realized the window was nothing more than a glorified hole in her wall, and with there not being the issue of gravity underwater, she just slipped out and swam downwards, congratulating herself on her shortcut. 

The passage below was much less well lit than the ones in the upper part of the building, and sloped downward, further and further underground. Hero bit her lip and forced herself forward, swimming faster and faster down the tunnels until she took a sharp corner and collided with something- er, someone. 

“Hey now,” barked a familiar voice. “Watch where you’re-”

He turned and blinked down at her, and then leaped backwards, eyes wide as saucers.

“Now I’ll be,” he said. “What in tarnation are you doin’ here?”

Hero had had so much she’d wanted to say when she met the mermaid again. There were so many questions she’d rolled around in her head, so much she wanted to know, but as she tread water beneath an underwater palace, faced with a mermaid she’d met only once before for barely a minute, she suddenly felt foolish and young and embarrassed and couldn’t think of a single word to explain herself or how she’d found herself so terribly far from home. 

She was saved from having to respond by a scarred face appearing behind the other man. Hero hadn’t noticed the bars on the walls until this newcomer peered at her from between them.

“Dial,” asked the new man gruffly. “Who’s that?”

“Uh,” said Dial, running a hand through his hair. “Well. Y’know yesterday when I brought up my… uh… that kid I saw by the shore?”

The man in the cell’s brows furrowed. “I thought you said she was-?”

“Human?” supplied Dial. “Well, she was yesterday.”

“I’m Hero,” she said suddenly, not knowing what else to say.

“Well,” said Dial. “Hero. ‘S awful good to meet you. I’m Dial and dollface over here is TOby.”

“Toby?”

“TOby,” corrected TOby. “Who turned you, kid?”

“Huh?”

“Who turned you into a mermaid?” he said slowly.

“Oh, uh, Miss Cell the witch did.”

“What’d you trade her for it?” asked Dial.

“Just my legs. Oh, and my boots, but that was for something else.”

TOby frowned. “That was nice of her. She’s not one to go easy on new customers.”

“What’d you go’n sell your for legs, anyhow?” asked Dial, crossing his arms over his chest. “Don’t you got a dad back on dry land? I’d bet he’s worried sick over you right about now.”

“How do you know about my dad?” asked Hero.

Dial’s face went nearly as red as his hair. “Ah, well, y’know. People watching and all. You can see a lot from the shore, and besides, all kids got parents, don’t they?”

Hero shook her head. “My papa doesn’t go anywhere near the ocean if he can help it. You couldn’t have seen him from there.”

“The kid’s smart,” said TOby, seeming more and more amused.

“TOby, hush,” said Dial. “Well, uh, y’see…” He faltered, gesturing vaguely. “You see you’ve got to consider that…. Alright, okay, so, the thing about it is-”

The man in the cell groaned. “For fuck’s sake just say it already before I start to rot in here,” said TOby. 

“Hey now! Watch your mouth around the K-I-D!” snapped Dial.

“What’s a fuck?” asked Hero.

“Jesus,” said Dial, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Every minute you hold out on her I’m teaching her another word,” TOby said.

“I thought you were on my side, here!”

“When am I ever on your side?”

“Hey!” shouted Hero. “How do you know my dad?!”

Dial let out a heavy sigh. “Listen. Your dad and I… We’re cousins, alright?”

“I thought you were siblings,” said TOby.

“Might as well have been, but nah,” said Dial, turning his attention to Hero. “My mom’s sister was your dad’s mom, make sense?”

“That makes the kid your second cousin,” said TOby.

Dial sighed again, turning back to TOby. “And why’s that relevant  _ right _ now?”

“You said you had a niece. What you really have is a second cousin.”

“Wait, wait!” said Hero. “You and my dad are family, yeah?”

“Yeah,” said Dial.

“So,” said Hero, thinking. “Is… was my dad a mermaid?”

“Ah,” said Dial. “Nah. Wrong way around. I was human.”

“Oh,” said Hero. “What happened?”

“It’s a long story,” Dial said.

“I like stories,” said Hero.

Dial hummed, smiling a little. “Alright then. It was years back, way before you were even a gleam in someone’s eye. The two’a us were out boating, being young and cocky, talking about out big future aspirations an’ how your dad was gonna be a big movie star and I was gonna be the best talk show host in the northern hemisphere, didn’t notice the big storm rolling in till it was on us. We hit the rocks, went under, next thing you know I’ve got gills, your dad never got close enough to the shore to throw a rock at ever again, and I went’n became part of some fancy-shmancy mermaid council. Like ya do.

“I don’t reckon I’ve got the whole story since then from the dry land side, but from what I can tell eventually yer granddad kicked the bucket and left the lighthouse to Geebs- to your dad. That cousin’a mine always had some mixed up sense of duty so of course he’d never leave it empty, and some years later I spy him with some little bundle of joy- that’s you.” He offered Hero a grin. “Still not sure how exactly that happened, but you don’t look a gift stork in the mouth, as they always say.”

“Nobody says that,” said TOby. 

“Does my dad know you’re a mermaid?” asked Hero.

“Well…” Dial scratched the back of his head, looking away.

“Dial doesn’t like to talk about it,” said TOby. “Which is saying something, because most of the time I can’t get him to shut up.”

“Listen, none’a that matters right now,” Dial waved a hand like he was shooing a fly. “Yer dad’s probably worried sick about you, you know that? You don’t belong here, you should go home.”

“But,” said Hero. “Wouldn’t that mean you don’t belong here either? You used to be human, too.”

“That,” said Dial, glancing over to TOby. “That’s different.”

“No it’s not,” insisted Hero.

“Look, kiddo, I got a life here now. ‘Sides, there was big drama over my… arrival, as it were, so- well that don’t matter, the point is you can’t stay.”

“And what if I do belong here?” asked Hero, puffing her chest defiantly.

“The fact is you don’t,” argued Dial. “Dollface, help me out here, won’tcha?”

“Oh, no,” said TOby, holding up a hand. “I don’t get mixed up in human drama anymore, you know that.”

“C’mon,” said Dial pleadingly. “You still got your stuff, you could turn her back in a snap, couldn’t you?”

“I can’t while I’m in here, and I wouldn’t anyway. You know better than anyone what happened the last time I-”

Dial did a sudden double take to the spot where Hero had been a moment before. “Aaaand she’s gone.”

“Figures,” said TOby. 

Dial let out a muttered curse. “I’m gonna go find her. Don’t you go running off while I’m gone!”

“Ha ha!” TOby called after a retreating Dial, the sarcasm bouncing off the prison walls. 

He didn’t find her in the tunnels, or in the clearing outside. He didn’t find her by calling her name, or searching the surrounding alleys and paths, or even by swimming up to the surface and calling her name across the water. 

He didn’t find her, because she was back in her borrowed bedroom curled in the bed that wasn’t hers, hoping he couldn’t hear the thumping of her heart from outside. The pounding in her chest only calmed down once the voice became distant. Eventually her eyes grew heavy, and before she knew it she’d drifted off to a light and uneasy sleep. 


	7. A Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> RGB contemplates how to find his daughter. Dial stages a family reunion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to week 3 y'all! The love and support has been incredible so far. Comments are always appreciated!

The lighthouse keeper hadn’t slept a wink all night. After making his way home from the witch’s marsh he was muddy and frustrated and exhausted, but he simply dropped the boots and the shoebox of bad memories on his cottage doorstop, checked once more that there was nobody else home, just in case, and headed back towards the ocean.

Staring out at the endless blue, he realized just how little there was for him to do. The witch’s potion sat heavy in his pocket, but even if he were to use it, where would he start? Hero could be anywhere at this point, and besides, he could barely force himself within 5 feet of the water anyway. He sat heavily on a large driftwood log, sighing and rubbing his arms against the ocean chill, which was made more apparent by the loss of his jacket. If the only thing to do was to wait for her to return, then here he’d wait, right where she’d be able to find him.

He leaned back on the log, only to cause it to roll beneath him and send him tumbling backwards off of it with an indignant yelp. He cursed, righting himself and brushing sand from his hair, shooting an angry glare at the driftwood. His eye caught something where the log had been a moment before, and he moved closer to investigate.

It was a small treasure trove of shells and rocks and bits of glass worn soft and cloudy by the sea. Curling conch shells and bright red scallops joined chunks of fossilized coral in the recess in the sand beneath where the log had been. Half a dozen perfect sand dollars sat in a stack next to a small pyramid of sea stars. The man picked up a shell the size of his palm and turned it over to reveal thick bands of vibrant green.

“Hero,” he whispered, knowing in an instant that she was who this stash must have belonged to. With the size of the collection, it had to have been built up over many, many visits. There was a vision in his head of his daughter, sneaking here while he was at work or asleep or otherwise preoccupied with other things. He saw Hero shaking sand from her hair and hiding her swimsuit beneath her clothes and digging an alcove beneath a piece of driftwood so her own father wouldn’t see the beautiful treasures she pulled from the ocean.   

There were suddenly tears in his eyes. He sat with the shell in his hand and tears running down his face for longer than he cared to admit.

At some point, he was interrupted by something small striking him square in the forehead. He let out an unattractive snort and nearly fell backwards again from the surprise of it. A small stone, more of a pebble, really, sat in the hollow of the shell in his lap, and he could tell from the shining path it left in its wake and the puddle beginning to form around it that it was wet.

“Ow!”

Another rock hit the side of his head while he was busy examining the first. He stood, looking in the direction they were coming from, only to squint at the morning sun gleaming off the ocean waves. That was definitely the source, but who could possibly-?

“Hero?” he called. “I say, Hero, is that you?”

Another pebble hit him in the chest.

He scowled, trying to block the sun with a hand as he looked closer. There was something, about ten feet out in the waves. Like seaweed, but finer, and… red?

A tan arm broke the water, pulled back, and released another rock. The lighthouse keeper caught it, and in a single swift motion returned it, causing a splash a few inches from the figure’s ear.

“You still throw like a wimp,” called the figure in the water.

The man on the shore blinked, the familiarity of the voice hitting him much heavier than any rock in the chest. A wave of memories, tinged in the sepia nostalgia of childhood, washed over him. Him and Dial as boys. Him and Dial sharing a bedroom. Him and Dial chasing each other down the beach or racing up the rickety lighthouse stairs. Him and Dial rowing out one night, into the fog. Him and…

“Dial?”

“Ding-ding-ding, we’ve got a winner!” The bobbing head pulled a bit further out of the water, up to the shoulders. “Caller number 1, just look at your wonderful prize!”

It was an old game they used to play, Dial as a pseudo-radio host playing quiz games with his cousin. His cousin. Dial, his cousin, was alive, and floating 10 feet out in the ocean, playing a radio host just like they had as children.

The shell fell from the man’s hands and into the sand at his feet.

“What,” said the lighthouse keeper. “The _fuck_.”

“Alright, I know you’ve got your fair share of questions,” said Dial, holding out his hands in a calming gesture.

“Of course I have questions, first of all being _what the fuck_?” shouted the man. “You- you were- you’re supposed to be-”

“Yeah, well, I’m still kicking, more literally than you’d think.”

“And what are you doing just floating in the ocean like a buffoon? Come out here so we can have a proper conversation, you twat.”

“Yes, well, ha, remember that ‘kicking’ comment?” Dial leaned back, and the fins of his copper tail broke the surface, gleaming in the sunlight. “These fins weren’t made for walking, as it is.”

RGB just stared. He managed to close his mouth after a couple seconds, and then he ran both hands through his hair, beginning to pace back and forth in the sand. A few seconds later he spun on his heel, one finger raised and his mouth open, then decided against it and returned to pacing.

“’S an awful lot to take in, ain’t it?” asked Dial.

“You’re a-” The word died on the lighthouse keeper’s tongue, and he made a vague hand gesture in lieu of the word. “-now?”

“I’m a bona-fide denizen of the ocean, if that’s what yer asking.”

A series of bewildered noises escaped RGB’s mouth, ending in the only real word he could muster- “ _How_?”

“See, well, while we were having our ill-advised young adult rebellion and sticking it to the man, there was someone a bit more friendly passing by underneath. Now I’m still a bit fuzzy on the details but the dude took pity and made sure I didn’t drown, and, well, I ain’t drowning anytime soon, if you get my drift.”

“And so you’ve been alive this whole time?” asked the lighthouse keeper. “You’ve been alive this whole time and you haven’t reached out until literally just now?”

“Shoot, you’re right. All this time... I really shoulda sent a letter. Or maybe a telegram? Smoke signal?” Dial made a show of pretending to be thinking. “Or, y’know, I could try my hand hovering around the shore for years, waiting for you to show up or walk close enough to shout at, which you never do, till I run into your kid - who somehow managed to sell her legs while you weren’t looking, the darn thing - and have to find you out having a good old cry on the beach while I’ve just busted my tail swimming all this way to come and get’cha. Yeah, that last one sounds like a grand old plan, don’tcha think?”

RGB felt his face go red. “I- I mean you couldn’t expect me to be ecstatic about being near the water after what- after you-” he paused. “Wait, you’ve seen Hero? Where is she?”

“I’m glad you asked. Yer kid- also, by the way, who the heck names a kid ‘Hero?’”

“It’s greek,” said the lighthouse keeper. “Where is she?”

“All the way out in timbuktu on some hairbrained adventure. She definitely takes after you.”

“And you didn’t think to bring her back here?”

“Of course I thought it,” said Dial. “But the darn thing got away from me. I was thinkin’ if she hears some sense from you she might be more open to receive it, y’know?”

RGB went pale. “Me?”

“‘Course. Look, this plan’s a little fuzzy ‘round the edges, but if there’s any way you can-?”

“I can’t.”

“Well, now, c’mon, we haven’t even tried-”

“Dial, please, just-” He took a deep breath. “I just can’t go to her where she is now. I’m sorry.”

“Well, what’m I s’posed to do? You got a runaway child on your hands.”

“I need you to bring her back here.”’

“I just told you-”

“I know. Trust me, I know. Just… Tell her I’m worried about her, and I want her to come home and… and that I’m sorry, okay?” RGB looked at his cousin with pleading eyes. “Please, can you do that for me?”

Dial let out a heavy sigh. “And what if she won’t listen to any’a that?”

“Then,” said RGB, and and then he fell silent. After a moment he wiped his mouth, ran a hand to the base of his neck, stared up at the sky. “Then,” he said, quieter. “I’ll just have to wait for her to want to come home on her own.”

“Do ya really think she’s going to?”

A smile flickered on the edge of the lighthouse keeper’s lips. “You did.”

Dial laughed once. “Fair ‘nough. Alright. You sit tight, I’ll relay your message and let you know how it goes. Hey, maybe if we’re lucky, next time I see you she’ll be with me.”

“I can only hope,” said the lighthouse keeper. “And Dial?”

“Yep?”

“I’m… glad you’re not dead.”

Dial flashed a crooked grin. “Love ya too, cousin.”

And then he was gone.


	8. A Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hero addresses the council. Advice is given from an unlikely source.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Halfway through week 3! Next update's on Friday. Your comments have been so encouraging, thank you all!

Hero woke to raised voices, and for a moment she forgot where exactly she was. The room around her was foreign, even more so in the daylight as opposed to the low, bioluminescent glow of the night before. Everything seemed to stand out in sharp contrast to each other, and she desperately wished for the familiar view of her own bedroom walls.

She slipped out of the bed, still dressed in her sweater from the night before. Outside her window, dozens of mermaids swam to and fro, making their way around the city and running errands. Her eyes caught on a mother and father, toting a giggling child between them. Hero watched them until they vanished behind a pillar, a peculiar sort of longing in her chest.

The raised voices continued, and Hero’s curiosity piqued. She stuck her head out into the hallway, listening closely. The voices led her down the twisting corridors, and she took the time during her search to admire how the coral structure allowed for the natural sunlight to filter into the building, lighting the corridor in an orangish yellow.

She stopped short as two silver-tailed mermaids swam past, headed for an opening much larger than the one for her bedroom had been.

“So why’re we up at the crack of dawn, again?” asked one as they passed.

“Oh, you know, Click’s up to his usual antics,” said the second with a yawn.

“Ugh,” said the first, holding the seaweed ‘door’ open for the second. “He’s impossible to stop once he gets started.”

“Hope you didn’t have plans today,” the second one chuckled as they disappeared inside.

Now that she was closer, she recognized the main voice as the one of the guard she’d met the day before. She pushed through the seaweed and into the chamber to find a number of mermaids gathered around the perimeter of the room, with her guard in the open center, voice raised to be heard among the dissenting voices but a cold sort of calmness about him.

“What I am saying, chancellor,” said Click, “is that for years - years! - these humans have kept a member of our own royal family from us. This act of abduction should not go unpunished.”

“And what evidence do you have to back your claim?” called someone from the crowd. “How do we know she wasn’t taken by another settlement of our own kind?”

“Her sudden reappearance, dressed in human clothing, should be evidence enough. These humans are dangerous!” He raised his harpoon. “We must retaliate, and in full! I propose a full scale-”

“Oh, not this again,” shouted one in the crowd. “We can’t just-”

“I propose,” said Click, louder, “a full scale attack upon any and all humans who dare trespass, beginning with those ships we have continued to turn a blind eye to that come ever closer and closer to our great city-”

The dissent swelled. Someone yelled “We do what we must for the peace and survival of our people, if we start attacking every passing vessel-”

“Then they will know the power we yield and pay us the respect we deserve! Surely, after the cruelty our own princess has suffered at the hands of these humans-”

“You’re wrong!”

The clamor fell silent at Hero’s yell, and in a moment she felt every eye in the room turn to her. Click himself had spun to stare at Hero in the doorway, a funny sort of expression on his face.

“I mean,” she said, faltering slightly. “I mean, people weren’t mean to me when I was up there as a human. I had friends, and a family up there too. My papa was kind, and he raised me and looked after me and… And it’s all I ever knew. And I don’t really remember being a- a princess, or what my real parents were like, but I know that I loved being a person and I… I miss it.” She didn’t know exactly where she was going with that statement until the next words were out of her mouth. “And I think I want to go back.”

The chamber erupted with noise. Suddenly everyone seemed to have a say on the matter, and the crowd rushed together, leaving Hero to be pushed back towards the door. Just before the crowd blocked her view, she saw Click, still in the center of the room, staring directly at her with a look that made her blood run cold.

Nobody else seemed to be paying her any attention after her outburst, so she took the opportunity to back slowly out of the room before darting away down a random hallway. She wasn’t sure where she was going, exactly, but the coral walls had her feeling awfully claustrophobic, and, funny as it seemed now that she had gills, she needed some air.

Eventually, she came out a side entrance. This side of the castle seemed much less busy than the others she’d seen so far, and for once there were no other mermaids in sight. She allowed herself to float downwards until she was sitting in the sand, her back against the outside wall. The girl hugged her knees - were they still knees despite her lack of legs?- In either case, she made a joint in her tail about where her knees would be and hugged them to her chest.

She supposed now would be a good time to cry, but tears didn’t come, and she didn’t quite feel in a mood to force them. Instead she just sat in the sand and focused on the odd empty feeling in her chest, which she was currently trying to decipher as either sadness or hunger.

There was a shuffle in the sand to her left, and she looked over to see a colorful creature peering up at her with its beady eyes.

“.--. .- .-. -.. --- -. / -- . --..-- / -- .. ... …,” the creature clicked.

“Hello,” she said.

“.... . .-.. .-.. --- / -- .. ... …,” clicked the mantis shrimp.

She held out a flat palm and the shrimp crawled onto it. Carefully, she held it in front of her, marvelling at its color.

“You’re very pretty,” said Hero.

“-.-- --- ..- .----. .-. . / ...- . .-. -.-- / -.- .. -. -..,” it replied.

“You remind me of a bug, a little. There were a lot of bugs on land.”

“.-. ..- -.. .,” said the mantis shrimp.

“It’s not a bad thing. I love bugs! Especially the colorful ones.” She sighed. “I’m a long way from home.”

“Are you, now?”

She looked up and only saw a rock that had not been there a moment ago. She squinted at it, suspicious, until the rock itself seemed to unfurl, changing colors until it revealed itself as an octopus.

“I see you’ve befriended Tinker, there,” said the octopus. “I’m Tailor.”

“I’m Hero,” said Hero.

“I used to know a Hero,” said Tailor. “But that was a long time ago, in a place a long way from here.”

“I used to live in a cottage, with my dad. And he manned the lighthouse,” said Hero. “It seems like I haven’t been home in forever, but it’s only been two days.”

“You got all the way here in only two days?” asked Tailor. “It took Tinker and I nearly a week. We weren’t smart enough to ask for a tail like you did.”

Hero blinked at them. “You’ve seen the witch?”

“Yes,” said Tailor. “She’s the reason we’re like this. Each of us traded something to come live in the ocean, but neither of us was specific enough, so she gave us what we asked for and nothing more.”

Hero thought about this. “But, if you were to go back and ask her to turn you back?”

“We have nothing else to trade,” said Tailor with an approximation of a shrug. “Besides, we’ve made this our home now. Sometimes you have to be happy where you are.”

“I don’t want this to be my home,” said Hero. “I like my old home, with my bed and my boots and my friends.” She wiped her nose on her sweater sleeve. “I miss my dad. I want to go home.”

She was suddenly crying, and Tinker in her hands was clicking softly, while Tailor had put one tentacle on her shoulder.

“It might not be too late,” said Tailor. “You can still go home, and maybe still trade something to become human again.”

Hero sniffled. “You really think so?”

“I think it would be foolish not to try,” said Tailor. “The fastest way to shore is that way.” They pointed with one of their arms. “It’ll be faster for you than it would be for me or Tinker, but it will still take almost a full day.”

“Okay,” said Hero, setting Tinker on the ground beside her and giving him a small pat. “Okay.” She pushed herself up, looking in the direction Tailor had indicated. “When I do get back, should I ask the witch if she’ll turn you two back, too?”

“You’re kind,” said Tailor. “But don’t sacrifice anything for us. We’ll find our own way.”

“Thank you,” said Hero. “I hope I do get to meet you again.”

“Hopefully not too soon,” called Tailor as Hero swam off.

“.-- .... .- - / .- / ... .-- . . - / -.-. .... .. .-.. -..,” said Tinker.

“Isn’t she just?” returned Tailor.

The path back was through the same kelp forest she’d come in through, and the moment she entered the sun was blotted out until everything was the same sickly green tinged with black. The water’s temperature dropped and Hero hugged her sweater close, guarding herself from the chill.

There were no distinguishing landmarks in the forest, with every strand of kelp looking exactly like the last. At some point, Hero began to wonder if she really was going in a straight line, and wasn’t just heading in circles. She debated trying to swim up to the surface, or down to the seafloor in an attempt to find something more recognizable to follow.

She was still debating this when she heard something behind her. No - to the left. Or was it above her?

The girl paused, taking a moment to listen. The kelp around her seemed to muffle all noise, and it took her a moment, but there it was, omnipresent, coming from nowhere but everywhere. _Click. Click._

“Well well well,” said a voice from the kelp. “You want your legs back, do you?”

He was nearby, but the source was impossible to determine. She spun around, looking where she’d just been, only to hear the noise from the direction she had been heading. She hurried forward, then paused, the noise and the sameness of her surroundings throwing her off, and she realized with a sudden terror that she had lost her direction with no way to get it back. And still the noise followed her.

_Click. Click._

She swam, no heed to direction, hoping desperately to emerge on one side of the forest or the other. At this point even ending up back in the city was preferable to staying put, and she swam until she was winded and lost and desperate.

_Click. Click. Click._

“Please,” said Hero, calling out into the green nothingness around her. “I just want to go home.”

There was no response at first, just the sound of the water and the waving foilage and her own heavy breathing, water rushing in and out of her gills. She strained her ears, struggling to hear something, anything, that would tell her where the man was who was following her.

_Click._

When the voice came again, it was directly behind her.

“Then I’d be happy to oblige.”


	9. A Trial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> RGB waits for Hero. Click has his justice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So u know that warning tag for implied violence? This is the chapter where it applies. So just an additional warning. As always, comments are highly encouraged!

He did his best to stay put and wait, but patience was never the lighthouse keeper’s strong suit, especially when it came to waiting for Hero to come home. He paced back and forth enough over the course of the day that he left a long divet in the sand. He’d sit for a few minutes, then leap up, pace, sit back down, then repeat the process.

He did that for the entire day and into the evening, past the sunset and into the night when the stars specked the sky overhead. He did that until he sat on his driftwood seat and couldn’t keep his eyes open long enough to leap back up.

The man was asleep when the fog rolled in, and when something found him and nuzzled under his arm. The motion woke him just enough to feel hair beneath his hand, and he pet it idly.

“Hero,” he mumbled, "you should be at home in bed."

The child under his arm stood, and his brow furrowed. “Wait, it’s too dark for you to walk home alone.”

The child raised a little higher, pulling him up with her. No, it wasn’t a child. It wasn’t his child. It was raising too high, too fast, tugging him along. His hand, once tangled in the fine hair he thought had belonged to his child, was caught fast in something that was quickly changing to become wet and slimy and sticky.

His eyes snapped open to meet a single yellow eye with a horizontal pupil, and a creature that looked like it might be a horse if it weren’t quite so terrifying. It let out a neigh that was more like a gurgling, drowned scream, and the lighthouse keeper felt his hand sink deeper into the creature’s mane.

 _Kelpie,_ he thought, and screamed.

Already it was dragging him forward, and his shoes were in the tide. The man did his best to try to drag his heels and yank his hand back, but the kelpie’s pace was relentless. The water was up to his calves, his knees, his waist.

The potion. He still had it, in his pocket. He frantically reached for it, the water already past his pockets and creeping up his chest. Where was it, where- there! He pulled it out, above the water’s surface, frantically trying to dislodge the cork with one hand. He finally ripped it out with his teeth, tipping his head back to keep his mouth above the surface. The blue liquid was downed in one gulp, and had he the time it would have made him gag and choke, but the moment it passed his lips he was pulled the rest of the way under.

Breathing water was nothing like breathing air. It was heavy and wet and salty, and burned his lungs, but he wasn’t dead. The kelpie plodded forward still, heedless of his protests, until it came to a very abrupt stop. The lighthouse keeper tried to see through the dark water, and could only make out something vague ahead of him; an odd sort of golden gleam - six pinpricks in the dark.

“You’re still alive?” said a voice that sent him back years. “How unfortunate.”

And then he was struck between the eyes with the blunt end of a harpoon, and everything went dark.

When he woke again, it was with a pounding headache, which was not helped by the shouting that was going on all around him. He tried to rub his temples, only to find that his wrists had been manacled together, and his legs treated in a similar fashion. The potion he’d downed earlier seemed to still be in full effect, luckily, but that was the only lucky thing he could find about his situation.

He looked around, only to see a room full of people who all looked as if they wanted to personally throttle him. No, not people. Glimmering tails and elaborate fins were everywhere he looked, and he realized he was the only human in a room stuffed to the brim with merfolk. His eyes went to the person - the mermaid - in front of him, and he forced his ringing ears to focus on what was being said.

“-all the way across the bay, swam for hours, just to see him. The man she called father,” said the mermaid, shouting over the cries of outrage from the crowd and waving an arm in the lighthouse keeper’s direction.

“Hero?” he mumbled, coughing at the scratch of salt water across his throat.

“And what did he do when she found him? When she begged to be allowed back to where she had once called home? Did he accept her with open arms?” The merman banged the base of his harpoon on the floor with a BANG for emphasis. “No! This - this _human_ couldn’t bear the sight of his own adopted daughter in her true form. It made him sick! It made him so sick that he did the unspeakable!”

“Where-” choked the man, “where is Hero?”

“Split her tail down the center, just to make her walk! Left her for dead upon the sand, out of our reach!”

“Where is Hero?” the lighthouse keeper repeated, louder.

“Kill him!” shouted someone in the crowd.

“Drown him!” shouted another.

“Where is my daughter?!” shouted the lighthouse keeper, desperate to be heard above the rising din.

“Everyone, everyone!” called the speaker, raising his hands in an attempt to calm the room. “I want him dead as much as any of you, but we must have a proper vote-”

“ _What the fuck did you do to her_?” screamed the man.

For the first time, the speaker turned to acknowledge the prisoner. That face, the sharp features, the shark’s grin- The lighthouse keeper knew that face, from a night years ago when he and his cousin had taken a boat, when his cousin had drowned, when he was nearly dragged to his death by a monster with that same grinning face.

“You,” whispered the man.

“Hello, human,” spat the merman. “Guards, take him away until the council decides what will be done with him.”

He was grabbed by the arms and hauled backward, kicking and screaming all the while. He was paying more attention to trying to get away than to where he was being taken, so he barely took notice of his surroundings until he was being thrown in a cell. The guards retreated too quickly for him to call out to them, so he took his utter and absolute despair and frustration and vented it by slamming his fists against the bars and screaming until his throat was raw.

When he finally paused for breath, leaning his forehead against the bars and closing his eyes, a gruff voice floated across the way.

“Hey, just a neighborly request?” said the voice. “Can you not do that? Some of us were trying to sleep until about two minutes ago.”

The lighthouse keeper raised his eyes to see a very annoyed looking mermaid in the cell across the hall. In the filtered morning light, the man could see a myriad of scars across his arms, his torso, even one cutting up the left side of his face.

“Oh,” said the lighthouse keeper, “was I bothering you?”

“Only if you consider ‘screaming while someone else is sleeping’ to be bothering.”

“Well!” said the man, a cheshire grin creeping onto his face. “I’m ever so terribly sorry to be a bother, my good man! You see, it’s just been somewhat of an atrocious forty-eight hours, what with my daughter going missing, being swindled out of my favorite coat by a witch, finding out that not only is my formerly-thought-to-be-dead cousin alive, but has been for years, and then, and then! To top the whole thing off, somehow I manage to get myself kidnapped and dragged off to- to- to god knows where we are right now, only to find out that I’m being framed for maiming my own child, whose whereabouts are still unknown at the moment. Would you perhaps say that that’s a decent reason to be screaming? Because if you can possibly think of a better one, I would absolutely love to hear it!”

He’d started shouting somewhere near the end, but at this point it was becoming a physical effort to not start hyperventilating. The mermaid across the hall just blinked at him.

“You’re Dial’s cousin?”

The lighthouse keeper’s false smile broke. “You know Dial?”

“That was you, in that boat, years back, yeah? You and him went sailing?”

“How do you know about that?”

The mermaid was off the floor, pressed against the bars of his own cell. “And you said you got kidnapped? By-?”

“I don’t know his name, the one with the sharks teeth and the-” He made a hand gesture, indicating the armor that the other man wore. “But he was there, years ago, in the wreck. I’d recognize that face anywhere. But how do you know all this? Who are you?”

“I’m TOby,” said the mermaid. “I’m the one who saved your cousin’s life.”

“You what?” asked the lighthouse keeper.

“The one who wrecked your boat, the one who brought you here today- that’s Click. He’s always had it out for humans. I was… in the area that night, and I saw everything. I- well, I used to have a fair bit of magic, so I used it to keep your cousin from drowning. Click was furious, so he brought the case before the council to put me in here. We’re not supposed to turn a human without permission from the council first.”

“Wait, so,” said the man, “you just… happened to be nearby? When we nearly got killed?”

TOby shifted. “Yeah.”

“And you decided the best course of action wasn’t to drag us to shore, but to give my cousin a tail? Even though you literally got put in jail for it?”

TOby’s eyes narrowed and he looked away.

“Besides,” continued the man, “what sort of society locks up a person for saving a life?”

“It was a lot of… technicalities.”

“Like what?”

There was a long pause. Stiffly, like he was reading from a technical manual, TOby recited: “Clause 34-A. A mermaid shall not fall in love with a human, nor turn a human for reasons therein.”

The lighthouse keeper blinked. “What, now?”

TOby huffed, waving a hand dismissively. “I was young and stupid and I’d rather not talk about it with you of all people. Can we move on to more important topics, like the fact that your kid was here last night?”

“Well you could have started with that,” said the man. “How was she? Where did she go?”

“She was fine, and hell if I know. She ran off and Dial ran off to find her and neither of them came back, and now you’re here.”

The lighthouse keeper nodded, his eyes trained at the floor. “Alright, alright,” he muttered. “And you say this was just last night, and she was fine then?”

“I don’t like repeating myself,” said TOby.

“Right,” said the lighthouse keeper. “Right…” He suddenly grinned, and the man across the way frowned.

“You’re awful chipper, considering.”

“I certainly am, and do you know why?” He grinned wider. “We’re getting out of here, and then I’m going to find my daughter if it’s the last thing I do.”


	10. A Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> News crosses the ocean. Another deal is struck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alternate chapter summary is "a bunch of fish play telephone." Merry Christmas to all, be kind to one another and spread as much joy and love as you can. We all depend on one another, after all. I'll see y'all on Wednesday!

The council meeting went long, with many angry voices competing for dominance. So busy were the delegates that they didn’t notice a colorful figure perched up in one of the high windows of the chamber, who left immediately after hearing the fate of the crown princess.

The mantis shrimp found an octopus and relayed what it was that he’d heard, and the octopus made haste in heading towards the shore. They had barely gotten to the edge of the kelp forest when they met an eel, who was looking for their friend who had come here two days prior. The octopus explained, and the eel, who was a much faster swimmer, turned tail and headed back from where they’d come. They shouted the news to a jellyfish who lived near the shore, who immediately went to find her wife and tell her of what had happened.

In a matter of hours, news of Hero’s fate had crossed the entire cove.

In about an hour more, news of a beached whale had reached all the children in the village.

They ran down the path to the beach, armed with plastic buckets, ready to see a monster of the sea on the shore. The whale, when they found her, was less beached and more lurking in the shallows, the majority of her back breached as she sprayed water into the air periodically.

The appearance of the whale was quickly overshadowed by what the children found on the beach directly in front of her. A circle of children formed around their find, and they whispered excitedly to one another.

“What is it?”

“It’s a kid.”

“It’s a mermaid. Merkid?”

“What happened to its tail?”

One of the children knelt down, poking the figure’s hair from their face with a stick.

“It’s Hero!”

“What?”

“It can’t be!”

“It is, look!”

One by one the children crowded around until each confirmed it was definitely the lighthouse keeper’s daughter. Their whispers went from morbidly curious to anxious and frightened.

“What happened to her?”

“Why won’t she wake up?”

“We should take her back to the village.”

“We should take her to the witch.”

A long debate was had in the shadow of the not-quite-beached whale who had pointed them to their friend. After much deliberation, the children decided the witch knew more about mermaids than any of their parents, and they went through the careful process of moving Hero onto a bed they’d made by laying out their coats on the sand. Together, they carried her in their makeshift stretcher along the coast, then up into the scrubgrass, and then into the marsh. Two of the children moved ahead, batting down the reeds so the others had a clear path. They shouted out into the marsh as they went, calling for the marsh witch above the songs of the frogs and crickets.

They found the cottage with no trouble, smoke curling from the chimneys and lights in the windows, and a bright “OPEN” sign hanging on the door.

One of the kids knocked on the door.

There was a rustling from inside. “Finally, some customers during business hours. Come in!”

The children pushed inside, and the witch turned to greet them. Her eyes sparkled at the sight of them, until she saw the heavy bundle of coats held between them.

“What on earth do you all have there?”

“It’s Hero,” said one of the children.

“She’s hurt real bad,” said another.

“Well, don’t keep her hanging there like laundry, here-” Cell moved toward the side of the room, clearing space on a long table. “Lay her down, let’s see.”

“Can you fix her?” asked a third kid as they shuffled the injured girl toward the table.

“In the words of my predecessor: I’m a merchant, not a doctor,” said the witch, pushing through the small crowd of kids to look at the girl on the table. “But let’s take a look, shall we?”

She examined the child, poking and prodding and humming occasionally as she peered at her with narrowed eyes. She took one of Hero’s arms, raised it a few inches, then let it fall limply on the table.

“Well,” said Cell, “the good news is that she’s only mostly dead.”

The children mumbled nervously amongst themselves. A brave spokesperson stepped forward from the small group. “What’s ‘mostly dead’ mean?”

“It means she’s not completely dead, which would be much more expensive to fix. Not impossible, just expensive.”

“Oh,” breathed the spokesperson, sounding relieved. “Well, that’s good.”

“Yes, yes,” chuckled the witch. “For someone mostly dead, there just needs to be an equivalent exchange for the years the person may have lived.”

The relief evaporated in a moment. “What?”

“I’m not fond of repeating myself, you know. It’s all very straightforward.” She swept an arm towards Hero on the table. “She’s not dead, so she doesn’t need the spark of life. But, as of currently, she’s out of time. Left as is, her lack of time would result in death, but if she is given more years she’ll be right as rain.”

The children discussed this. “So… how does she get more years?”

“Well,” said Cell with a chuckle, “that depends on how you want to pay.”

“We don’t have much.”

“Years for years is the easiest way to do it,” shrugged the witch. “Hero is, what? Six? Eight? Either way, she can be expected to live, oh, I’d say seventy years is a nice long life. That means we have about sixty to make up. And there are- one, two… six of you, quite convenient. Ten years apiece and she’ll have a nice full life, and the rest of you will hardly feel the difference. I’ll even fix up her wounds as part of the deal.”

“Ten years?” asked the spokesperson.

“What if one of us is s’posed to die in less than that?” blurted one, who received a frantic elbow from their neighbor.

“Oh, this is just natural lifespan,” Cell waved a hand, like swatting a fly. “Any and all unnatural deaths are unaffected by this transaction. You all have plenty of natural lifespan left in you.”

Six pairs of eyes exchanged nervous glances. “Can we talk about it first?”

“Take all the time you need,” said Cell, who then paused, shooting a sideways glance at Hero’s prone form. “Well. Maybe don’t take too long.”

The children formed a small circle and whispered amongst themselves. At several points one of them would raise their voice, only to be shushed and consoled by the other kids. One spontaneously burst into tears a few minutes in, and took several more minutes to be calmed down. Finally, the six seemed to come to an agreement and turned back to the witch.

“We’ll do it,” said one. “For Hero.”

“For Hero,” echoed the rest.

Cell smiled. Slowly, she raised a hand, then snapped her fingers with a sound that reverberated through the hut and left the children with an odd sort of hum in their chests.

“A pleasure doing business with you,” said the marsh witch with a smile.

The children rushed past her, going to their friend’s side. A second passed, and then Hero took a shuddering breath, color returning to her face as she suddenly looked much less dead and much more asleep.

“She still has a tail,” noticed one of the kids.

“She does,” said Cell. “Removing and/or replacing it was not a part of our deal. I would recommend getting her back to the water before her scales start to dry out, it can be terribly uncomfortable for a young mermaid to be on land for too long.”

“C’mon,” said one of the kids. “We can figure out how to get her back normal when she wakes up.”

The group transferred her back to the makeshift stretcher and, bidding the witch farewell, trekked back towards the ocean with their friend in tow.

They were near the beach when Hero began to stir, and the kids who weren’t actively carrying her squeezed in closer to see her, while the carriers spent more time watching their payload than where they were going. The girl made an attempt to stretch that ended in her nearly entangling herself in jackets, wrinkled her nose, then groggily blinked up towards her friends.

“Hwazzit? Whahappun?” she asked, struggling to make her way fully into the waking world.

A sudden cacophony of each of the children individually trying to fill her in on what had transpired did not help her any in trying to understand the situation. She just stared and blinked and nodded vaguely at the snippets she could catch, like “found on the beach,” “huuuge whale!” “carried you all the way all by myself-” “and she was a HEDGEHOG or maybe a porcupine,” “they’re gonna tell you I cried but I didn’t I really didn’t so-” “and she snapped her fingers and you were all better!”

“Huh,” said Hero.

“We’re really glad you’re okay,” said one of the village girls.

“Thank you for helping me,” said Hero. “I missed you all when I went away.”

They lowered Hero into the shallow water on the beach, and she just sat for a while, answering questions and asking her own, trying to get caught up and catch her friends up in equal measure. Their session was cut short, though, by the sudden appearance of a blue-grey mountain emerging from the surf a bit further out, the spout of a blowhole signaling Melody’s arrival. A moment later something red popped up next to her, and a brown arm began to wave frantically in her direction.

“Kid!” shouted Dial. “There you are!”

“I gotta go,” said Hero to the village kids.

“You’ll come back soon, though?” they asked.

“Soon as I can,” said Hero. “Promise.”

With that, she pushed herself into deeper water and swam towards Dial. The man had a panicked look in his eye when she was close enough to notice, and he grabbed her by the shoulders as soon as he was within arms length.

“Thank your lucky stars you’re all back in one piece,” said Dial, looking her over. “Mel's here filled me in on what happened, and by golly I forgot how much trouble follows that cousin’a mine around on a regular basis. Must’ve rubbed off on you too, huh?”

Melody gave a lilting call.

“Yes, you’re right, okay,” said Dial hurriedly. “We don’t have time to waste, kid, grab a flipper and let’s go. I’ll explain everything on the way.”

“Where are we going?” asked Hero.

Dial gave her a determined glance. “We gotta go save your dad.”


	11. An Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A verdict is reached. Two fugitives attempt to flee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second to last chapter! Y'all have been so kind during all of this, and I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I've liked writing it. As always, if you like it, please leave a comment!

Somewhere far across the cove, a man who very much did not want to be there waited patiently for his opportunity. Or, perhaps, not quite as patiently as he’d intended. In his own defense, in the movies it usually cut right to the dashing and roguish protagonist in their cell, executing their thrilling escape plan. The movies tend to cut out the middle bit, where the dashing and roguish protagonist ends up waiting for hours with their face pressed to the bars of their remarkably unremarkable jail cell.

The dashing and roguish protagonist still had the imprints of the bars on his cheeks when he was rudely awoken by a harpoon slamming against the door to his cell. He recoiled, blinking rapidly and moving to wipe the drool from his chin before realizing there wasn’t a point, being underwater and all. His mind gave a small note of thanks towards the longevity of the potion he’d downed, as it didn’t seem anywhere closer to wearing off.

The owner of the harpoon scowled at him, and the lighthouse keeper scowled right back.

“I see you’re taking your trial seriously,” sneered Click.

“I can only be convicted if I’ve done something wrong,” said the lighthouse keeper, taking a moment to stretch.

“Well it seems your death sentence confirms your guilt, then.”

The man paused. “My-?”

“The council adjourned mere minutes ago. The decision was unanimous.” The man’s grin somehow flashed in the low light, sharp rows of teeth glinting dangerously. “Your execution shall take place at sunrise.”

“I suppose you’re the royal executioner?” asked the lighthouse keeper.

“Oh, please,” scoffed Click. “The kingdom has others assigned for the disposal of human filth like yourself.”

“Huh,” said the man. “See, I always figured you would be the death of me, but I never expected you to take the coward’s way out.”

The smirk disappeared. “Excuse me?”

“Then again, I should have guessed you would have someone else do the job for you. After all, what sort of monster fails to drown a man who can’t swim?”

In a flash of movement, one golden-adorned arm shot through the bars of the man’s cage, yanking him forward by the throat and pulling him against the bars so his face was inches from the snarling expression of the mermaid in front of him.

“I am not the monster here,” growled Click, fins beside his face flaring.

“Clearly,” choked the lighthouse keeper.

“Hey!” shouted a gruff voice across the small hallway. “I doubt the executioner would be pleased if his assignment is dead before he arrives.”

Click snarled, his anger turning from the human and his hand releasing the man’s throat. The lighthouse keeper hacked, falling backwards and clutching his neck, feeling deep scratches left behind from the other man’s nails.

“I thought you might have rotted away by now,” sneered Click.

“Nah,” said TOby, “I’m not that lucky.”

Click turned back, glaring down at the human. “Enjoy your last hours,” he said, and then, seemingly satisfied, vanished down the hallway from where he’d come.

“Oh, I’m planning to,” said the lighthouse keeper when the guard had gone.

“Antagonizing the asshole’s your idea of a fun last few hours?” asked TOby.

“Well, funny thing. You see, before I was left the lighthouse, I hopped the pond and did my darndest to break into showbiz. Never quite took off, but I did have a mildly successful run as a stage magician-” He paused a moment to lift the hand he’d previously kept in a tight fist, revealing a small ring of keys. “-specializing in sleight of hand.”

“You really are mad,” said TOby, a hint of near admiration in his voice.

The lighthouse keeper grinned, then went to work unlocking his manacles. They fell open with a clink, and he moved quickly to his cell door. “Are you coming with me?”

“No, thanks. I think I’ll sit and waste away in here.”

“Oh. Well, if you insist-”

TOby was up against the bars in an instant. “Get me the hell out of here.”

The lighthouse keeper grinned. “Good man.”

The two moved silently, with TOby in the lead. He claimed to know the layout of the prison, but the years he’d spent disconnected from the rest of the building, let alone the kingdom, were quickly apparent. Two wrong turns and their hasty corrections later and they finally managed to find the exit.

They peered out into the city, both hesitating.

“How high are the chances that I’m spotted immediately and am dragged back to my death?”

“In the hours pre-sunrise, when there’s hardly anyone out?”

“Mhm.”

“... I won’t lie they’re probably too high for us to go out there as is.”

The lighthouse keeper sighed, sliding down against one of the walls. “From a small cell to a larger one, it seems. I’d make a comparison to frying pans and fire, but I feel it’s an inappropriate metaphor to make underwater.”

TOby frowned, looking at his fingers. A few weak sparks came from his palm, and he curled his fist around them, looking toward the human. “Hm.”

The lighthouse keeper’s eyes narrowed. “Whatever you’re thinking, I don’t think I like it.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve used my magic, but there’s a chance I could disguise you until we’re out of the city.”

“How high of a chance?”

“About as high as you getting caught without some sort of disguise.”

“And what about you? People won’t recognize another fugitive on the loose?”

“Most of these people haven’t seen me in at least a decade. If we move fast we’ll be fine.”

The lighthouse keeper sighed. “Fine. Do what you have to do.”

TOby snapped his fingers, and the water around the human’s legs shimmered. A moment later, a tail had replaced his legs.

“Please, please tell me that’s reversible,” whimpered the man.

“Oh, please.” TOby rolled his eyes. “It’s not even real. It just looks like you have a tail. Actually transforming someone takes a lot more effort, and I’d rather save my energy if I’d be turning you back relatively soon.”

“Right,” said the lighthouse keeper, staring downwards and trying to reconcile the image of a tail with his ability to feel his legs moving independently. “Of course.”

“Now let’s go. Move quickly, keep your mouth shut and follow me.”

“Like I need telling twice,” said the lighthouse keeper, moving close behind the mermaid.

They were barely 10 feet out from the entrance when they hit their first glitch.

“What are you doing?” hissed TOby.

“What?”

“You’re… sinking.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“Well, don’t!”

“I don’t know how!”

“ _What_?”

“I don’t know how to swim!”

TOby dragged a hand down his face. “How can you not know how to swim?”

“Well, a lifetime of staying as far from water as physically possible will do that to a person.”

“Just… I don’t know, try kicking? We’re not getting anywhere with you acting like you’ve got rocks tied to you.”

“Alright, alright.”

They moved a bit further before TOby yanked them behind a building.

“What? Did you see someone?” asked the lighthouse keeper, looking around nervously.

“What were you doing with your arms?” asked TOby, crossing his own over his chest.

“What?”

“You were-” TOby made a vague, limp-wristed paddling motion. “It’s embarrassing, and you’re drawing attention to yourself.”

“I told you, I don’t know what I’m doing!”

“Well don’t do whatever it was you were doing!”

The lighthouse keeper threw his hands up in frustration. “Do you plan on giving me any useful advice anytime soon?”

“If you get us caught I’ll kill you before they get the chance.”

The man sighed. “Wonderful.”

They set off again, their pace slowed by the lighthouse keeper’s attempts at swimming. He noticed after a minute he was paddling with his arms again, so he shoved them deep in his pockets to keep them occupied. Then, he realized that by doing so, his hands were vanishing into his illusory tail, so he tried crossing them against his chest. After another moment, he realized that with the illusion it made it appear that his suspenders weren’t attached to anything, so he tried to slip them over his shoulders, and in the distraction he’d forgotten to kick and found himself standing on the ocean floor, with TOby putting more and more distance between them.

“Hey, hey now wait!” he called, kicking off and doing his very best to breach the gap, but in a moment the merman had made a sudden turn and was out of sight.

“Damnit,” hissed the man, throwing style to the wind as he did everything to get to the last point where he’d last seen TOby. He was nearly there when what appeared to be a mother and her child turned the corner and started heading his way. He froze, then looked away, arms tucked and crossed behind his back as he tried desperately to propel himself forward with only his legs.

“Momma, that man’s wearing human clothes,” said the child, pointing.

“Don’t point, it’s not polite,” said the mother, shooting the lighthouse keeper a dirty glance. “Just let the man be-”

It would just so happen that that was the moment his false tail flickered and vanished like a candle flame being blown out.

The woman screamed, yanking her child away. “Guards! Guards!”

The man cursed and began a desperate breaststroke, heading somewhere, anywhere. There was a doorway ahead, and he pushed through it, only to find himself interrupting a family who appeared to be sitting down to breakfast.

“Don’t mind me, just passing through,” he said, using the walls and floor as precious footholds and rocketing himself through the room and out the open window on the other side.

He made a decent amount of progress this way, hopping in one building and out the other side, making full use of hand- and foot-holds to push himself as far as he could through the open water between them. A chorus of shouts and screams followed wherever he went, but at this point he was too desperate to care, and knew as long as he kept moving he still had a chance.

He was getting closer and closer to the dark wall of the city, which he noticed was waving kelp as he hopped from building to building, room to room, window to door and back again. He could surely lose anyone following him in there, and TOby was sure to catch up eventually. Even if he didn’t meet up with the other man, surely his distraction was giving TOby time to get further and further away, and as long as they both were able to flee the city it was a good enough escape in his eyes.

There was one more building between himself and the city perimeter, and he slid in through the window feet-first. It was some sort of store, not yet opened, and he hurtled over counters, sending a display of shells tumbling to the floor as he bolted for the seaweed-covered exit. He burst through, ready to make the final desperate swim towards the city boundary, only to desperately backpedal in order to avoid a harpoon pointed directly at his throat.

The man with the shark’s grin had positioned himself directly between the lighthouse keeper and the kelp forest, and was wearing an expression of triumph.

“Going somewhere, were you?”


	12. An Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things come to an end, as all things do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are, at the very last chapter. This has been an incredible experience and I think I really enjoyed doing the update schedule, so whenever I come up with another multi-chapter fic I'll try to implement a similar posting method. Thank you all, and remember to be kind to one another <3

“You thought I wouldn’t notice my keys were gone the moment I left? Truly, for something as slimy as a human, your escape methods are lacking.”

“I got this far, didn’t I?” asked the lighthouse keeper, casting a nervous eye to the spear point that was mere inches from his neck. “Besides, I thought your type liked the whole ‘catch and release’ concept…”

“Joke all you want, landwalker,” said Click, smile growing near unnaturally wide, “didn’t I say you’d be dead by sunrise?”

The first golden rays of daybreak were filtering through the water, painting the scene a warm orange that the lighthouse keeper wished he was admiring from his own post far from here. Sunrise was a blessing on a normal day. It was a symbol of safety, a sign that his shift was over, that he no longer had to be the guiding light for sailors and ships, that now the sun was there to light their way.

Now, he wished more than anything that he could stop the turning of the earth and keep the sun from rising.

“Time’s up,” said the guard.

There was a flurry of movement, a chorus of shouts, and the sound of metal as the lighthouse keeper screwed his eyes shut and waited for a quick and painful end. Something knocked the wind out of him, but it was significantly less sharp than he’d expected it to be. In fact, whatever was now clinging to his midsection was actually quite soft, and warm, and… shaking?

He cracked an eye open and looked down into the top of a head of messy brown hair. “Hero?”

“I’m sorry!” she cried into his shirt. “I was just gonna be gone for a little bit and I was gonna come straight back and then I wound up here and then I was home but you weren’t there and I-”

“Hero, Hero, thank heavens-” he said, the words coming out with a laugh. “Hush now, it’s alright. How are you, are you hurt?”

The girl sniffled, looking up at him with a wide grin. “No, I’m okay-”

“Sorry to interrupt,” said Dial. “But what in the hey did we just walk in on here?”

Dial had placed himself between Click and the other two, a warning hand out in each direction. Click still had his harpoon raised, eyes flicking between his target and the two newcomers, a sneer on his lips. 

“I was being blamed for the mutilation of my child,” said the lighthouse keeper, glaring daggers at the man across from him. “Who, quite luckily for that man there, appears to be unharmed.”

“It seems she’s picked up your annoying habit of refusing to die,” hissed Click.

The lighthouse keeper bristled, and was only held back from throwing himself at the guard by his cousin’s extended hand and Dial making a quick, calming noise.

“Look, just let them go back home, that’s all they wanna do,” said Dial, looking toward Click. “They ain’t gonna come back here no more-”

“No? But others will. That’s what humans do, isn’t it?” Click sneered. “First they fished the schools near the bay, and we moved back to let them. Then they cut paths through the seas with their ships, their propellers, their fumes, and we stepped aside to make room. Humans used to fear the creatures of the sea, and now what are we? Docile in the face of those who will take our home out from beneath us? From these, these- monsters?” He pointed his harpoon at the lighthouse keeper, who pushed himself in front of Hero at the threat. “But what would you know? You used to be one of them, after all.”

“Hey, now,” said Dial. “Easy.”

“Nobody listens to reason. We could be so much more if the council didn’t balk at the smallest hint of bloodshed.” Something dangerous flashed behind Click’s eyes. “Well I choose not to be afraid of spilling blood.”

“Give it up, old chap,” said the lighthouse keeper. “Can’t you see you’ve lost?”

“No,” said Click. “I’ve won.”

And he lunged.

A number of things happened at once. Several people threw themselves in several directions. A harpoon was flung through the air. A chorus of voices cried out. And there was a strange, electrical sort of noise that persisted, even as the rest went quiet.

The lighthouse keeper lifted his head, his arms wrapped securely around his daughter and his back to his would-be attacker. Dial had flung out an arm, placing himself squarely between Click and his family, and directly in the path of the flung harpoon.

The tip of the weapon looked poised to have impaled all three of them right in a row, had it not somehow suspended itself, motionless, mere breaths from Dial’s chest.

“Can any of you stay out of trouble for more than five goddamn seconds?” came a gruff voice from the kelp. A moment later, TOby emerged, two hands extended. One was aimed at the spear, and the other at Click, who was thrashing in some sort of invisible bond, his arms held tight behind his back. 

“E-excellent timing, Dollface,” said Dial, licking his lips and eying just how close the harpoon had gotten to his chest. Dial lifted a hand and nudged the tip of the weapon in a different direction, rubbing the spot on his chest anxiously. “Didja have to cut it quite that close? Also you not being in jail is new.”

“I’m trying it out,” said TOby. “Anyone hurt?”

“Thankfully not,” said the lighthouse keeper. “Oh, and Hero’s here!”

“Hi, TOby,” said Hero. 

“Glad you’re not dead,” he replied. 

“Freeze!” shouted someone, and suddenly there were at least a dozen mermaids in a circle around them, each wearing a uniform similar to Click’s. 

Click thrashed harder against his magical bonds. “Seize them! They’re traitors! Escaped prisoners! They’ve committed treason against the royal family-”

“That man just tried to murder us!” shouted the lighthouse keeper.

“He threw a harpoon at me!” shouted Dial.

“He cut my tail in half!” shouted Hero.

“He did  _ what _ ?!” cried the lighthouse keeper.

“I got better,” Hero assured him. “But he still did it!”

One of the guards lowered himself into a bow. “Your highness, we are so glad to see you safely returned.” He straightened, looking with narrowed eyes to Click. “You say he is the one who attacked you?”

“Mhm,” said Hero.

“And what shall be done with him, your highness?”

“Oh,” said Hero, blinking. “Um…”

TOby appeared behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “A princess may send a traitor to the crown to the royal prison for as long as she wants.”

“How long is long enough?” asked Hero, looking up at him. 

“Oh, at least as long as my sentence,” said TOby, glaring pointedly at Click. “Which was a long, long time.”

Click spat a string of words that the lighthouse keeper hoped his daughter wouldn’t pick up. 

“Can I do that, then?” she asked the other guard.

“As you wish,” he said, giving another bow. He cast a glance at TOby, who was still standing over Hero. “And… as for the escaped prisoners?”

“A princess can also apply a royal pardon,” whispered TOby. “If she wants.”

The details of the pardon were discussed and agreed upon, and in a matter of minutes both her father and the man who’d helped him escape were granted full pardons, and two guards had separated from the pack to drag a kicking and screaming Click off to the royal prison. 

“Hero,” her father whispered to her while the other guards were busy with their new prisoner, “why do they think you’re a princess?”

“Oh,” Hero said, “because I am.”

The lighthouse keeper just nodded. “...Right.”

“But,” said Hero. “I… don’t think I want to be one.” She looked up at the guard she’d talked to earlier. “S’cuse me?”

“Yes, your highness?” he replied, snapping to attention.

“Um, well, this kingdom is really nice and all, and it’s really pretty and there are a lot of nice people here, but…” She looked back up at her father beside her. “I don’t think I wanna stay here. I wanna go back to live with my dad, if that’s okay.”

The guard blinked in surprise. “Oh. Well, um…” He scratched the back of his head. “I’m, uh, not sure, and since the Queen isn’t here and hasn’t been able to properly welcome you home yet-”

“What if,” said TOby, interrupting. “I act as a liaison between the shore and the kingdom. I’m fully capable of transforming Hero from human to mermaid as she wishes, so she can return to visit at any time. I would also be able to relay any messages between Hero and the royal family, so that contact will never be lost.”

The guard thought about that a moment. “I suppose that’d work.”

“You can really turn me back?” Hero asked TOby.

“As long as it’s not ten times a day, sure,” he said. 

“And if it’s alright with y’all, I’d like to start up some more frequent visits,” said Dial, slinging an arm around TOby’s waist and smiling at his cousin. “We’ve got an awful lot to catch up on.”

“We certainly do,” said the lighthouse keeper.

“Oh!” said Hero, remembering something. “I don’t know if they’d want it, but, just in case, I think there’s some people the witch turned into fish and stuff - Tinker and Tailor, and I think even Melody, and Julienne, and Assok? I think a lot of them are stuck, and maybe some of them want to be human again?”

“Hm,” said TOby, running a hand down his chin. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Hero grinned, then turned to her father. He was looking down at her with tired but fond eyes, and he reached down and ruffled her hair, causing the girl to giggle.

“Hero,” he said. “You should be at home in bed.”

“So should you,” she returned.

A thin smile graced his lips. “It's too dark for you to walk home alone.”

The girl smiled, taking his hand in hers. “Then let’s go together.”

And so they did.


End file.
